From The Hellmouth He Shall Be Borne
by Anime-Ronin
Summary: Abandoned. Buffy and some D&D Xander gets some help after a Willow magic SNAFU.
1. Default Chapter

From The Hellmouth He Shall Be Borne

Author: Anime Ronin

Rating: R (for demonic content, language, sexual allusions and gore)

Summary: An accident puts Xander's life on the line, and if he succeeds, he  
shall ascend to a new level, to a new calling, and he shall not only have all  
new abilities to draw from, but he shall also have all new dangers to face.

Disclaimer: Joss and the people at ME own Buffy, and whoever owns D&D owns D&D.

AN: This is a challenge from Twisting The Hellmouth, one that I am taking up but  
slightly modifying to fit with D&D-type spells and skills. Same concept,  
though, so there shouldn't be that much trouble. Also, this is set in S2 after  
Hell-o-ween, but before Christmas – Willow and Oz are together, Cordelia and  
Xander are not.

AN2: After reading through the D&D Cleric Class, I won't be using the spell  
level system (it'd be getting too involved in the game itself, not to mention  
distracting) or the Domain System in an overly selective style (choosing one and  
staying with it) – that's too restrictive, but as to make him not too powerful,  
I'll restrict which ones he does use. Also, his Skill points (ones he would get  
if this were the game) will be done accordingly, as will Feats – he will need to  
earn them all.

Cast of Other Characters: Archangel Michael – Evan Marriott (Joe Millionaire),  
Rufus – Chris Rock (Dogma), and more will be added as they come up.

1/?

Buffy watched Willow sob into Oz's shoulder as both Giles and Jenny did what  
they could to make Xander comfortable, though she was sure that he didn't even  
know what was going on – he looked so pale, so lifeless, but just seconds  
before, when she had caught him, he had a pulse and if her ears were to be  
trusted, he did still have one. Willow had, in a fit of trying to help Xander  
out, as neither Giles nor she herself had ever tried to train him, a mistake  
that she now realized was far too big to have been allowed to happen, read out  
of a book and made a potion to help Xander at least get some rudimentary  
fighting skills that his Soldier possession had only just shown him, yet not  
left him with much behind to use. Xander had asked Willow if it was safe to  
drink, a reasonable question in Buffy's opinion as she remembered the cup of  
liquid bubbling and fizzing a green color, and Willow had told him that it would  
be completely harmless … and then said the magic words they all dreaded,  
'What could possibly go wrong?' Xander gave Willow the Evil Eye and told the  
still-learning witch that if he died because of her, he'd haunt her for the rest  
of eternity – even as Giles gasped and tried to get him to stop, Xander drank  
the cup of something all in one gulp, swallowing it and grimacing at the taste …  
and then having his eyes roll up into the back of his head and him dropping to  
the ground, only to be caught by her.

Willow told him that it wasn't funny, even as Buffy held the unconscious Scooby,  
but after a few seconds Willow's face went white as Giles shook Xander in her  
arms and then sighed, telling them the news, "Congratulations, Willow, I do  
believe that you just killed Xander."

Giles interrupted her thoughts by coming over to where she stood, "You know,  
Giles, you could have handled that better – kind of cold telling Willow that,  
you know?"

Giles only sighed, "Buffy, I admit that it sounded harsh, but it is the truth –  
Xander may die because Willow did something magical without consulting either  
Jenny or myself, and if he does I am woeful to think that her powers may have to  
be bound."

Buffy felt her gut clench as Jenny came over, "So, just what did she give him?  
Hemlock tea?"

Jenny handed Giles a book, "It might as well have been – it is a poison, Buffy,  
but one that induces a state of being to where the person is given a test within  
their own mind by the Archangel Michael."

Buffy blinked at this, sending her mind back to Sunday school oh-so-many years  
ago, "Wow."

Giles snorted, "Yes, wow indeed, Buffy. If Xander does indeed pass this test,  
he shall be empowered by ancient magic and become a Knight Templar – think of  
them as a magic-wielding Knight who answers only to God and the Archangel  
Michael."

Buffy nodded, "So, what does it take for someone to pass this test? Verbal and  
Mathematics? Science and Nature? I hope it isn't, because if it is, Xander's  
screwed."

Giles glared at her, "Do not make light of this, Buffy – Xander's very soul is  
in danger here; if he does not pass this test, not only will he die, but his  
soul may very well be sent to a Hell Dimension for all of eternity." This shut  
Buffy up and made Willow sob even harder.

"He'll survive, if for no other reason than to make my life even more of a  
living hell." Buffy felt her heart speed up as Angel walked out of the book  
stacks, his face drawn into a frown, "But it depends on just how devoted the  
change makes him – he may not let me survive long enough to regret it."

Buffy blurted out, "He won't kill you, Angel! He's your friend."

Angel gave her a disbelieving look and then snorted, "No, Buffy – he's your  
friend and to him I am someone who has been given a temporary stay of execution.  
Trust me, he'll kill me if told to."

"Then I'll stop him." Buffy didn't want to think about it, but she couldn't  
help it – could she really stop Xander from killing Angel? Sure, he was okay  
enough in a fight, even if his opponents were four times stronger and faster  
than him, but she knew that he would not be stopped from doing whatever it was  
he wanted to do, and she'd probably have to kill him to do that … and Slayers  
don't kill people. She shook her head slightly to clear the though, then looked  
at Giles, "So, how long does this test take?"

Giles only shrugged as Oz came over from where Jenny had gone to speak with  
Willow, "As long as it takes, Buffy."

Elsewhere

It had been centuries since someone had invoked the ritual properly, let alone  
been brave enough to try it, and for such a thing Michael was somewhat impressed  
– the boy, barely out of his mid teens, was not only from the Hellmouth, but  
fought the dissidents of Hell night after night without any sort of training  
from the Champion of the Powers, The Slayer, and all that he did know came from  
a pair of possessions and a childhood filled with abuse from his adoptive  
father. That alone would have normally been enough for Michael to pass his  
tests and to make the boy into a true Knight Templar, but from within the boy he  
felt something else, something that he had not felt in centuries before the last  
true Templar had been made … a pure soul. By no means was the boy a Saint, nor  
was he to be an Angel, but everything he did, he did because he thought it was  
the right thing to do at the time.

"Well, it looks like you are going to have a busy day." Michael looked over at  
one of the few reasons that he could see why Lucifer betrayed Father to the  
darkness and wondered if he had made the right choice again.

"Rufus, what do you want?"

The 13th Apostle smirked a little and reached into his robe, "Well, Mike, I got  
some good news for you, and I've got some bad news for you – well, actually,  
it's all bad. Your guy, Harris? He's off limits, something about  
jurisdictional conflict between Fate and Free Will with him – we're having a bit  
pow wow over who gets him, but he's not going to be a Knight Templar."

Michael swore beneath his breath, "Why? He could have been one of the best!"

Rufus just shrugged, "Hey man, not my call – he's going to another Pantheon,  
even if he's doing His work."

Michael only sighed, his wings ruffling slightly, "Please tell me Ares isn't  
getting him."

Rufus shook his head, "Nah, he'd go to either Apollo, Artemis, Ra or Frey,  
probably, Pelor on the outside – boy's got a serious White Knight complex going,  
and they're all either Good or Neutral, and Ares is just a little too far gone  
to be either."

Michael sighed, "I can't win, can I. I mean, what's he going to do?"

Rufus smiled, "Well, the Powers are getting a little too big for their britches,  
so You Know Who is going to throw a big monkey wrench in their plans in the form  
of your boy, Harris, as, get this, a Cleric aligned with the Sun and Healing."

Having seen what the Powers had done, and not to mention what they had planned,  
Michael felt a grin spread across his face, "So, their pet vampire …"

"Oh, yeah." Rufus chuckled and Michael felt his wings ruffle a little – things  
on the Hellmouth were going to get interesting, to say the least.

Xander's Mind

He looked around at supposed room, absently fingering the knife that sat on his  
hip, and sighed – when Willow had said the magic, and hated, words, he should  
have known better than to drink that stuff, especially now that he had the taste  
of Tang in his mouth that wouldn't leave, too. Sure, it was nice that someone,  
FINALLY, was trying to at least help him out, but, as was often the case when it  
came to him and magic coming together, things didn't go exactly as planned, "Why  
does this shit keep happening to me?"

"Are you sure you want an answer to that?" Xander snapped his head around and  
saw nobody, but instead felt a warm presence in his mind even as a body of light  
began to form in front of him. Tall, generally male in proportions, but made  
out of solid light as it 'spoke' again, "Know that I am Pelor, Alexander, God of  
the Sun, and I have chosen you to do my work as a Cleric."

Xander sighed, "Alright, fine – what'd I do wrong this time?"

"Wrong? You did nothing 'wrong', per se – truth to tell, you are being used as  
a way to keep certain brats who have a too-high opinion of themselves a bit more  
honest."

Xander growled and out of the deep shadows of the room, another growl, though  
far more animalistic in nature, was heard, "I am nobody's pawn, Pelor, God or  
not." From the other bank of shadows, he could hear the distinct sound of  
someone working the breech of an assault rifle, "But what, exactly, does it mean  
that I am going to be your Cleric?"

He could hear the smile in the voice as it went on, "At dawn you shall offer up  
an hour of meditation and of prayer, and for that, I shall grant you a certain  
number of spells, and before you say anything, I know of your history with  
magic, and it shall be a type that cannot fail due to your own self."

He nodded grudgingly, liking it already, "And what kind of spells would this  
be?"

"Basic Holy spells – when you meditate, you shall get a mental list of what is  
available, but know that you can only use them a few times a day. To balance  
this, though, as time goes on, you shall increase that number, and the number of  
spells you can use."

He narrowed his eyes, "And what's the catch?"

"You occasionally take up tasks that I give you, regardless of how you and your  
friends feel about them, and stay true to the light – that is all I ask."

Even within his own mind, Xander could not feel any deceit from the voice, so he  
nodded slowly, "Anything else?"

"Wake up." There was a flash of light, and then all he knew was pain.

Later – Library

"Are you SURE he said 'Pelor', Xander?" Giles watched the young man give him a  
glare that said, quite bluntly, 'yes, you stupid, sodding prat, he said Pelor',  
and Giles nodded, "Right, then I do believe that all is well."

"Well?" Willow, who was like a cancerous growth at Xander's side, spoke up at  
that point, "He almost DIED because of a stupid mistake of mine, and you say  
this is all well?"

"Quiet, Willow." Xander's voice, for all intents and purposes, had not changed  
in the hour or so since he had regained consciousness, nor did his expression  
change when Oz growled at him – he merely growled right back, with feeling, and  
went on as Oz shrank back in surprise and subjugation, "He told me that I'd have  
access to spells, Divine spells, and my own little magic FUBAR-ness wouldn't  
apply."

Giles frowned, "Fubar? I do not believe that is a word, Xander."

Xander sighed, "FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, Giles." Willow and  
Buffy both blushed at this, Oz cocked an eyebrow and Jenny snickered a little  
even as Giles found himself cleaning his glasses, "Either way, I pray and  
meditate at dawn and then I get a whole 24 hours to use x number of spells if I  
so desire."

"Divine spells." Jenny leaned forwards, a smile on her face, "Might I be able  
to get a list of those, Xander? For research purposes, of course."

Xander smiled a little and leaned forwards too, "Only if you ask nicely, Ms.  
Calendar."

"Please." Jenny's voice was laden with honey and Giles found himself more than  
a little upset at the blatant flirting going on, "Call me Jenny ... outside of  
class."

"Ooh, do you get some super-cool weapon that you might be lending your bestest  
Slayer pal, Xander?" Giles sighed at the thought of Buffy getting her hands on  
a magical weapon of some kind, as she was often deadly enough with normal  
weaponry, but thankfully, Xander didn't let him down.

"Pelor prefers that his Clerics use clubs and maces, but I do get to use all  
martial weapons and wear all armor and use all shields … except tower shields."

Buffy wilted at this a little, "Is it at least a magic club?"

"Sorry – not yet." Xander stood up, Willow still firmly attached to him, and  
then removed said girl before walking around, stretching out, "Well, it's been  
real, it's been fun, and except for the poisoning, it's almost been real fun,  
but I gotta go back home – mom is supposed to be making her special spaghetti  
tonight."

Willow frowned, "I thought they closed Giovanni's lat month?"

Xander shrugged, "I never ask where it comes from, Willow – you should know  
that." With that, Xander left and Giles found himself sitting back in his  
chair.

"So, what real use is he going to be to us, Giles?" Buffy's perky attitude had  
vanished, as he had suspected it was all a farce from the beginning, "I mean,  
should we even allow him to do this?"

Willow looked a little affronted as she slapped Buffy on the arm, "Excuse me?  
'Allow him'? Buffy, he's been this cleric thing for less than two hours – stop  
trying to control everything and everyone around you. Yeah, I messed up, and it  
turned out that we may get something good out of it, but don't go all defensive  
on us because he may be more powerful than you."

"Willow is quite right, Buffy," Giles interrupted before Buffy could retort to  
Willow. "Clerics have great power, supposedly, and can not only effect and  
destroy the undead and demonic entities of the Hellmouth, but they are reputed  
to be great healers, once they attain such power."

"He ISN'T more powerful than me, Willow." Giles had always suspected that Buffy  
had issues with power, but it had only recently come to light, after her  
possession by the noblewoman, that she could not deal with people who were more  
powerful than her – it was a byproduct of both that and the Slayer essence.  
"But that isn't the point here – should we let him do this? He could get hurt."

"We all could, Buffy," Jenny stated quietly. "Every night we do this, it could  
be our last – if you are so worried about him, why not make Willow and Oz stop  
as well?"

"Because you're teaching Willow how to do magic and Oz is a werewolf. Xander  
doesn't DO anything."

"Ah, so just because he has no power, then he is useless. I see." Jenny stood  
up and glared at the Slayer, a glare Giles was infinitely glad he wasn't on the  
receiving end of, "I have other things to do than to listen to someone who can't  
even admit to herself what she really feels about someone. Good day."

Giles watched Jenny's retreating/storming form and then turned to his Slayer,  
who looked a little confused, "Now see here, Buffy – if you wish to continue  
using your very apparent double standard, you had better learn how to deal with  
losing allies … POWERFUL allies. Xander's new gifts are potentially very  
useful, and if you cannot learn to deal with that, then you are doing nothing  
more than shortening your own lifespan. He is capable of, at the very least,  
healing magic, as well as abilities to harm the Undead; think about that as you  
go home. Good evening." He stood and walked to his office, ignoring her  
sputtering sentences as he sat in his chair and sighed before picking up the  
telephone and dialing a number from memory.

("Arcane Repository – How may I direct your call?")

"Quinton Travers, please – this is Rupert Giles."

Summers Residence

Buffy sat numbly on her bed, looking at a blank spot on her wall and hugged her  
stuffed pig, Mister Gordo, tightly to her chest as Jenny's and Giles' words rang  
back and forth in her head like some sort of demented game of ping pong; no, she  
did not think that Xander had any real reason to be in the same fight with her –  
he was normal, hence his being fray adjacent, but numerous times she had seen  
not only that he was as stubborn, if not more so, than herself, he also had an  
uncanny ability to see through all the gray area of a problem and make them see  
something they had missed. He'd done it before, with Angel – he had seen a very  
real threat of Angel turning on them, something that had not happened, yet, and  
had also told her, somewhere along the way, that just because somebody has a  
soul doesn't mean that they are good. She wasn't stupid, having seen the  
bruises, but she also knew that he had a will within him to do what nobody else  
would and could not – he'd been selected by  
the Hyena spirit as his pack's Alpha, it's leader, and Giles had told her what  
kind of person that would take, namely someone who was capable of killing  
anybody to protect his pack, his friends, and his family. These had all scared  
her more than she cared to admit to anybody but herself, her diary and Mister  
Gordo – if he ever had a reason to, Buffy was sure that Xander would be capable  
of killing her.

You sound as if you're surprised, Buffy. Great, that voice in her head, her  
conscience, was back, Yes, I am – tell me, is that the only reason you don't  
want Xander in this fight? Because he might get hurt?

Isn't that reason enough?

No, not really – you and the others have just as much to lose as he does,  
Buffy, so why not forbid Willow and Oz to fight along side you?

Because they have powers and Xander doesn't.

Correction – Xander DOES have powers now, and a lot of them too; care to try  
again, bottle blonde?

Briefly, Buffy wondered if it was a bad sign when you were being called names by  
and losing a battle of logic with a voice in your own head, then responded,  
Fine, then tell me what I should do. Come on, you voice; tell me what I should  
do.

Admit to yourself your doubts about who it was who saved you from the Master's  
Lair, first – you and I both know that Angel would not have risked himself on  
such a foolhardy mission, but Xander would. In fact, I'd be very surprised if  
Angel wasn't at stake-point when he brought Xander along.

Buffy growled and then sighed, Fine – I admit that. Now what?

Admit to yourself that your own feelings for Xander far exceed that of simple  
friendship. She could swear she could hear the smug tone behind her  
consciousness' voice, but said nothing, so it went on, You and I both know you  
like the possibility that if you and Angel don't pan out, Xander is there for  
you.

And how would you know that?

Because I AM you. DUH!

Buffy also had to admit that – she and voice were the same person, Fine, he's  
cute, but he's not boyfriend material, you – he's too much of a geek.

Just like you still act like a vapid airhead? Or a manipulative bitch? Or do  
you think that I've forgotten just how you used Xander to make a VAMPIRE  
jealous. There was definite anger in the words … and a great deal of truth,  
but it didn't stop there, Xander is one of the two people who made your first  
week in Sunnydale bearable, let alone possible as he saved your ungrateful ass,  
and he lost Jessie, his brother in all ways but blood! Did you ever ask him  
about it? No – you could have cared less about it and him.

"Alright, damn it, that's enough!" She put Mister Gordo aside and went to her  
mirror, glaring at the person in the reflection, "Where in the hell do you get  
off telling me that I care less about people and Xander?"

"About the same place I get off telling you that you're crazy." Buffy spun  
around and saw her little sister, Dawn, standing there, AND HOLDING MISTER  
GORDO! "Buff, I'm not sure just who you think you're talking to, but trust me,  
at your age, having an imaginary friend outside of Mister Gordo, let alone  
holding an active conversation with them, is a bad sign."

"What do you want, brat? And give me Mister Gordo."

Dawn arched an eyebrow but held the stuffed pig out with reluctance, "I want to  
know what has you talking to yourself at nearly four in the morning – in case  
you haven't figured it out, our walls aren't exactly overly thick, and I can  
hear your rather impressive loss against somebody." Buffy blushed at this, but  
Dawn went on, "So, what's up with the thoughts on Xander? I figure they aren't  
of the hot and steamy variety, let alone how yummy he's starting to look."

Buffy threw Mister Gordo at her, "He is NOT yummy-looking, Dawn."

"To me he is." These words froze Buffy to the core even as Dawn went on, "Of  
course, it's not like you'd notice – you're into older guys who like jail bait."

"Leave Angel out of this." Her own protest, as weak as it sounded, was just  
that – a protest.

Dawn punched her hand into the air, "Once more with even less feeling, why don't  
we? Look, Buffy, let's face facts – Xander is way up there on the hot scale,  
even if he is a bit of a geek. So what? Nobody's perfect … except me, that  
is." Buffy glared at her sister, who smirked back, "So make a choice – Angel or  
Xander, because if you chose Angel, Xander's mine, especially now that Willow's  
going out with that guy Oz." That said, Dawn skipped out of the room … holding  
Mister Gordo.

"Brat!" Buffy sighed and sat back down on her bed and lay down – it was a good  
thing that it was now Saturday morning, or she'd be in for it at school with  
Snyder. A small smile played across her lips as she lie down to go to sleep, "I  
wonder if Xander can do anything about him?" With that possibility, Buffy went  
to the land of Nod.

Harris Household – 0645

Xander opened his eyes as his meditation ended and the power of the Cleric's  
spells, well, some of them, began to flow through his body for the first time;  
it was a bit of a rush, but that was tempered by the stark contrast as to what  
he had been beforehand – without it, he was sure that he'd feel sick and very  
drained, and if he lost it … it didn't bear thinking. It was also very apparent  
that, even with this new power, it would start off small – as it stood right  
then, he could cast a grand total of five spell that day and know that they  
would work, but one of those was from what Pelor, after downloading into his  
mind a few facts and definitions, called a Domain, or a very specified area of  
magic. He'd spoken with the god of the sun and had found that, with the  
interference of the Hellmouth, the normal rule of using only one Domain was  
pretty much useless, which opened up a lot of option … and even more peril when  
it came to the Evil Domain.

With that in mind, he went about getting showered and dressed, as Giles had  
called him to ask for his presence at the Library the next day – gone were the  
days of sleeping in on Saturday, let alone watching cartoons, now that he had  
power and, like the web head had once said, 'With great power comes great  
responsibility'. When he finished pulling on his shirt, though, he saw  
something sitting on his bed that had not been there when he put his clothes  
down – it was a disk, about two and a half inches in diameter, carved out of  
wood in the shape of an elaborate sun design, with a face on it, and it was made  
to be clipped on to a belt or a strap, which he instantly did. Instantly he  
felt more focused and realized that it was indeed that, a focus, for his spells  
to be worked through – either Pelor was looking out for him, or someone else  
was.

He made his way down to the first floor, he stopped and looked at a truly  
pitiful sight – his mother, on the ground, curled into a ball and cradling an  
empty bottle of Jack Daniels; he knew that short of beating the patriarch of his  
family to death and forcing his mother into rehab, she'd never change, so with  
another sigh, not to mention a grunt, he picked up Jessica and carried her not  
only upstairs, but put her into her empty bed, covered her up and, with a  
slightly intricate move of his hand, cast a spell for the first time. The spell  
itself was one that was called 'Cure Minor Wounds' and it only took care of the  
abrasions on her cheek and little stuff like that, but it also took some of the  
gray out of her skin and from the bags under her eyes – he briefly toyed with  
the idea of going to Tony and slitting his throat, but Pelor wouldn't be happy  
about that, so he began to make other plans in the back of his mind as he went  
out the door and made his way to the School.

Later – Library

Jenny watched as Xander tested not only the strength of the mace in his hand,  
but showed a competency with it that had never been there before, before her  
eyes were drawn back to the medallion on his belt – it radiated a power that she  
had never felt before, one that contrasted starkly with that of the Hellmouth,  
which lay not more than fifteen feet away from the young man. In truth, while  
he had not had the most extensive reservoir of magical power at his disposal,  
she had noticed on occasion that Xander stood out more so than others in the  
past, much like a torch among candles, while Willow stood out like a raging  
bonfire. It was at that point that she noticed something else, or rather,  
someone else – Buffy.

There was no love lost between her and the Slayer, that much was for sure, but  
with her behavior as of late and how she was currently doing her best to  
apparently seduce Xander, who was blatantly ignoring her in favor of testing the  
weaponry Rupert had removed from the book cage, it made Jenny simmer even more –  
sure, he was cute, and looked to have serious potential as to becoming an  
excellent lover, but to be honest, he was too young for her, and if anything, he  
reminded her of a younger brother that her parents had never graced her with,  
and as such, she felt somewhat protective of him. It was odd, considering how  
very little time they spent together, but she couldn't help it for some reason.

"Tell me, Xander," Buffy said, trying to do her best to flash her rather  
unimpressive cleavage at the young man, making Jenny's simmering anger turn up  
to a higher boil. "What are the limits of your magic?"

"About whatever I want them to be, Buff, and you can stop trying to go for the  
indecent exposure of the year award – Harmony has that wrapped up with her  
little performance the other day." Jenny smirked as Buffy jerked back, Xander's  
eyes having never left the mace as he finished looking it over, "Numerous  
domains of magic, ranging from good and evil to healing and death, chaos and  
destruction to the elements, flora and fauna, and many mental realms." He put  
the mace down and then picked up a small handheld crossbow, checking it over  
with a professional eye before loading the mini-bolts into a magazine that fit  
into the side and racking the slide to not only cock the weapon, but to get a  
feel for it, "It's all a balance, Buffy – yin, yang, good, evil, man and woman."

"Thank OH, so much, Master Harris," Buffy growled, mock-bowing as if she had  
received wisdom from on high, a thought that Jenny almost snorted at. "So, your  
new god has all of these, then?"

"Nope – Pelor deals with the Sun, Healing and Good realms, but all of the gods  
share these realms in one aspect or another. Twenty-two realms, shared by  
nineteen gods and goddesses." He turned, aimed the crossbow and fired off a  
bolt, hitting the target dummy in the chest, but just below the heart, "Good  
aim."

Jenny arched her eyebrow at him, "You missed him."

He looked in her direction, "Did I? Now we can search him, take any money or  
jewelry he has, and then dust him – I don't know about you, but I'm not doing  
this stuff for free." He racked the slide again and put another bolt into the  
dummy, this one into the heart, and did so three more times until the bolt  
magazine was empty – one of the bolts had hit the dummy in the throat, one in  
the right eye, and the final one had been fired directly into the groin area.

"So you get this weaponry proficiency with your fealty to Pelor, then?  
Interesting." Rupert had been working all morning to figure out just how to  
duplicate the effects of Xander's new skills, but had been able, at such time,  
to come up with absolutely nothing, "Is there anything else, Xander?"

"Not much until I get out into the field, G-man. Shooting a practice dummy is  
one thing, but I need combat conditions to see just how well this stuff stuck –  
Clerics aren't front-line fighters, we're healers, defensive and supportive  
magic users who CAN fight if we have to. That aside, I want to go to Willy's  
tonight to test something." Xander walked over to the dummy, retrieved the  
bolts and was grinning the entire time, "But I will be needing someone to come  
with me, someone that the vamps and demons aren't afraid to talk around."

"So I'm out, then." Buffy pouted and Jenny smirked.

"Ms. Calendar, do you think you can pull something absolutely stunning out of  
your closet for a quick jaunt into a true dive, this evening?" Jenny cocked an  
eyebrow at Xander as Rupert sputtered, "Something that will have the demons  
fawning over you and completely ignoring me?"

She smiled a little, "You're up to something, aren't you." It wasn't a  
question.

"More like I'm proving a theory of mine." He loaded the bolt magazine and  
re-inserted it into crossbow, "If it works, I'll be able to pick up more  
information in ten minutes by just sitting there at the bar while you get hit on  
by every cheesy pickup line in the Hellmouth, than Buffy could by an entire hour  
full of threats and beatings."

Even as Rupert continued to sputter and Buffy growled, Jenny sidled up to Xander  
and smiled her little smile, "As I told you last night, Xander – call me Jenny."  
This was going to be fun.

Later – Willy's Bar

This was pure hell, Xander surmised as he looked around the bar and then back at  
Jenny, doing his best not to let his jaw drop and his tounge roll out to the  
not-washed-since-Nixon-era floor; she had somehow melted herself to the waist  
and POURED herself into a pair of tight jeans, wore a pair of black biker boots,  
a black muscle t-shirt that was about a size too small, a matching denim jacket  
and was being currently propositioned by a Feryal demon for a few hours of  
'blissful agony'. His theory was working – in his spell repertoire there was a  
spell that, for as long as he was undisturbed physically, he could read and  
understand all written and spoken languages, despite what they were, human or  
demonic, and it was working like a charm. Bits of conversations were floating  
into his ears about who was where, what was worth how much, who had bought it  
and why all of the so-and-so's were doing this and that – nothing too bad, but  
enough to keep his mind busy until Jenny sat back down  
next to him.

"Alexander, if we get out of here alive, we are going back to my apartment, I am  
getting into something descent and you are taking me out to dinner." He looked  
over at her and saw, in the depths of her dark brown eyes, a controlled rage  
that he almost flinched at, "I haven't been subjected to such cheesy pickup  
lines since I was in high school."

"Oh, so it's only been a year or two, then."

She arched an eyebrow at him, "Not bad, about a six point eight, but next time  
DO try a bit harder – I'd hate to think I squeezed into these pants for  
nothing."

Before he had the chance to think, he spoke, "Trust me, Jenny, when I say that  
it was well worth the effort to see you stop traffic on the way here, -  
literally."

She smiled at him a little more and chuckled as he began to blush, his last  
sentence finally registering with his brain, "Oh, much better – eight and a  
half, pushing nine. Keep this up and I may have to trade up Rupert for you."

It was his turn to arch an eyebrow, "Looks like G-man and I need to have a chat  
about robbing the cradle, then."

"I'm almost thirty, Xander."

He shrugged, "Yet you look not a day over twenty four – if all women were like  
you, Jenny, then all of our petty squabbles over land would cease. Helen of  
Troy had nothing on you."

Jenny openly laughed at this one, "Solid nine, definitely – now, let's leave  
before I am forcibly propositioned again."

He nodded and they left the bar, Xander knowing that every gaze in the place was  
on her. They were out the door and walking away when a thought occurred to him,  
"Jenny, why do you have a pair of motorcycle boots?"

She looked at him with a rather saucy smile and winked, "Play your cards  
correctly and you may just find out, Xander."

He arched an eyebrow – this was going to be an interesting dinner.

AN: Alrighty, then – this is part one of my newest ambition; this plot bunny was  
apparently fed several hundred gallons of 'Bunny Max Super Growth Formula'  
because it's all I've been able to think about for the past few days, since  
posting the last part of Chapter Eight on Revelations. Any questions?  
Comments? Pleads of mercy for me to stop this story now and shove it into a  
shallow grave? Let me hear them.


	2. Chapter 2

From The Hellmouth He Shall Be Borne

2?

AN: Well, to clear up a few things for everyone here, as Jenny is still alive, this is just after Halloween, so for the sake of argument, nothing has really changed as far as canon went, costume-wise, that is (Xander-Solider, Willow-Ghost, Buffy-Lady Useless). Oz and Willow are a kind of semi-couple, Kendra is in Sunnydale to stay, Cordy is apart from the group and both Tony and Jessica are in rehab.

AN2: Previous part to this story can be found at -

http/ Month Later)

Angel watched as both Buffy and Kendra began to tear their way through a pack of unsuspecting vampires and marveled, not for the first time, at how effective of a fighting force the pair of Slayers were when they were not trying to kill each other – it was an act of a higher power that he was still around at all, with as badly as Kendra had reacted to him at first, and more to the point with how very little help he had gotten from the others in his continued survival that made Angel wonder just how many allies he really had among the 'Scooby Gang'. Buffy was the love of his life, Willow was her friend and at least tolerated him, as did her boyfriend, Oz, Rupert Giles did the same and while Jenny Calendar of the clan Kalderash held no personal animosity towards him, she wouldn't save him at all if she had a choice in the matter.

"Watch your six, Kendra!" And then there was Xander Harris, the bane of his unlife, but more to the point, the most dangerous one of the lot – the boy held no allegiances to The Watcher's Council, nor to the clan Kalderash, but more to the point, he didn't need any of those ties as he was a force unto himself … and that was before his alliance with the being known as Pelor. He was currently clubbing a rogue vampire over the head with a rather large fluted mace before backhand smashing another, and had to visibly stop himself to keep from hitting him as well.

Kendra, for her part, only turned, smiled brightly at Xander, and then went back to slaying vampires, which led him to ask Xander, "Awfully chummy with her, aren't you?"

Xander didn't even spare him a glance, "You've got a point you want to make?"

Angel just shrugged his shoulders as the Slayers finished the vamps, "You and she just seem really … close – is it just Slayers who you get close to, or is it a strong woman thing?"

Xander didn't even miss a beat, "I don't know – is it a Slayer thing with you, or is it just jailbait that you go after?" Before, Angel would have ripped the boy's head off for that without fear of retaliation, but he knew that Xander would somehow find a way to take him into death with him, so he left it alone even as the last of the dust settled and the Slayers walked over, "Fair maidens of dust, I bid thee welcome."

Kendra blushed lightly and Angel couldn't help but smirk at the thought that the Jamaican Slayer was falling for the boy and Xander didn't appear to notice it, as per usual, but Buffy shot him an annoyed look before looking at Xander, a smirk on her face, "Maidens of Dust? Have we been demoted?"

"Nah, but while you do kick butt supremely with things that go 'squish', things that go 'poof' and get all dusty when you beat them are your true forte," Xander said amicably, his time spent with Jenny Calendar obviously making him more at ease and more confident with his speaking. This was proven as he, after putting away his mace, walked over and threw a friendly arm over Kendra's shoulders, who blushed a little more, "Now, what do we do?"

"Go home," Buffy said with a groan. "It's Friday, we've been fighting goon squads for the past week, and I'm in serious need of a shower to get all of this vampire dust out of my hair. Later, guys," she said, leaving the three of them there. As she left, Angel felt a pang of hurt in his chest even as he reminded himself that, over the past few weeks, she had been distancing herself from him, saying that their 'relationship' wasn't natural, that it would never work and, while it had initially almost destroyed him, as time went on he realized that she was right – he was a vampire, she was a Vampire Slayer, and even at this low point, Xander's words before forcing him down to the Master's Lair came back to him 'she seems to think that you're a person, and I need you to prove her right', so he respected her wishes and let it lay … for now.

"Shall we, Kendra?" The Jamaican Slayer was, currently, staying with Xander at his shared home with Jenny Calendar, after she had been granted temporary guardianship over him after his mother's and his father's forced trip into alcohol abuse rehabilitation – forced meaning that both Jenny and Xander had given them an ultimatum of going into rehab or to be bludgeoned to death by a mace wielded by a son who still had MANY issues he needed to work out. After that, some strings had been pulled by someone and, thus, Jenny was made to be Xander's guardian, an odd choice, given that they acted more like brother and sister, maybe even nephew and aunt, than people of no relation whatsoever.

"We shall, Xander. Farewell, Vampire," Kendra said to him with some distaste in her voice, as if the words were hard for her to spit out – it was no secret that she wanted to destroy him, despite Buffy's assertions of his good nature, but while the others were not as ready to jump to his defense, Xander had, to Angel's surprise, spoken up, saying that he (Angel) was off limits, but that if his soul was ever lost, it was 'dust city' for him. Buffy had praised Xander for his leap of faith, but that praise fell short as Xander then amended, "Of course, if anyone gets to dust him, it's me, so step in line, Kendra – it starts behind me," something which neither Slayer had liked, for two obviously different reasons.

Soon, though, Angel found himself alone in the middle of a graveyard and sighed before turning and walking back to his apartment – he had major brooding to catch up on, and nobody wanted to keep him from it.

(Harris-Calendar-McPherson Residence)

After a quick shower for himself and a slightly longer one for Kendra, Xander found himself as the meat in a babe-sandwich, something that once would have had him in happy-dreams for nearly a month, but after living with the pair for a few weeks, it was now somewhat commonplace. Kendra was on his left, dressed in a pair of sweat pants, her socks, a sports bra and a tank top, idly munching on some non-fat chips while Jenny was on his right, dressed (or, as he preferred to think, almost undressed) in a pair of her short shorts, a baby-t and socks and he was in a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, all three idly watching Moe, Larry and Curly go at it in classic reruns – he was, indeed, the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.

That's not to say that it was always fun – CPS was constantly in the house, checking on him and Kendra, as Jenny wasn't blood relation to either of them, and Kendra's Watcher, Sam Zabuto, had the rather annoying penchant for calling on Saturday mornings before the decent hour of noon, Jenny's jackass of an Uncle, Enyos, was always coming by in a way that made Deadboy look even more annoying, as he used the dark, stealthy bit just a bit too much, and, of course, he was starting to cop flak at school about it, flak he didn't take from anyone and made those feelings known, especially to Quark. For some 'odd' reason, the kids and staff at Sunnydale High seemed to have nothing else to do other than to pry into his personal life and the lives of Kendra and Jenny, and it was starting to get to him so much that Pelor had to almost nightly come into his dreams and remind him that clubbing someone to death with his mace was NOT the kind of thing that a Cleric of Pelor did … at least, not in the sight of others.

Kendra broke his chain of thought by passing her chips through his line of view to Jenny, who accepted them and began to chow down at a ferocious rate, bringing an odd thought to mind, "Jenny, I have a semi-personal question for you."

"I wax," she said instantly, looking over at him and grinning as his mind supplied several possible questions for that particular answer. He groaned lightly and she giggled while Kendra choked lightly, but Jenny relented, "What is it?"

"I've noticed you eat almost as much as I do, but you exercise even less – how is it that you stay so slim?"

She gave him a mysterious look and grinned before popping a handful of chips into her mouth, crunching on them while handing the bag right back to Kendra, who had a light blush on her face, "Why, Xander, are you curious? Looking to jump allegiances?"

He snorted at her, "Of course not, I was just curious."

"Well, you do know what they say about curiosity, right?"

It was Kendra's turn to get in on the action as she handed him a now-empty bag of chips, "It answers de question?"

He shot her a mild glare, which rolled off of her back without any effort – it was amazing that, after only a few weeks, Kendra had come out of her shell to the point that she was acting more and more like a normal teenaged girl her own age rather than a reclusive automaton who blindly followed orders as she previously had. He and Jenny had worked laboriously for HOURS to get her to laugh, let alone blush, though as that wasn't too hard they were taking what they could get, and from there it was daily exercises to get her to loosen up a little more, and after on a few days, Kendra was firing back small, shy quips when either he or Jenny would zing her.

Jenny noticed this and smiled, "No, that it killed the Cleric."

Xander gave her a bland look and made the sound of a rimshot, "Ha ha."

Kendra smiled at the banter between Alexander … Xander and Jenny – they had welcomed her into their shared home with open arms when Mr. Zabuto had decreed that she should stay in Sunnydale to help with the dealings there, generally because Slayer Summers … Buffy … was starting to show signs of weakening as the Slayer; Jenny had taken her aside for several hours and explained to her that, while she was a Slayer, she was not a robot and should act like a young woman in her teens would. Xander, for his part, had gone out of his way to tell her jokes and to try and get her to 'loosen up', as he called it, even while he himself was practicing and reading out of tomes that were not from Mr. Giles' library – she had been fascinated to no end when she had learned that he was a Cleric of a god, Pelor, and when she had shyly asked a classmate if they knew who this 'Pelor' was, Jonathan had been most kind to tell her.

The mere thought of Jonathan brought a slight flush of heat her to cheeks and she was cursing herself slightly when Xander noticed it and smiled at her slightly, "So, what's his name?"

She tried to play dumb, "Who?"

Jenny didn't buy it, "The guy you were thinking about … unless it wasn't a guy and you're into girls, and then we'd need her name."

Kendra's face exploded into a massive blush as the implications of that statement registered in her mind – she did not, as she had heard it, 'swing that way', though Jenny and Xander had once said that it was perfectly alright if she had, though Xander had mumbled something Jenny about 'especially if we can watch', which had gotten Xander elbowed in his ribs by Jenny even as he snickered. "His … hi… his name is … Jonathan."

Xander's eyebrow arched slightly, "Jonathan Levinstein?" Kendra gave him a look of pure dread as his mirth left a thoughtful expression came over his face, "Nice kid, a little self-conscious and lacking in the reality department, or at least his friends are." Xander then threw his arm around her shoulders and he pulled her to him, hugging her close, "I'm sure you'll reconnect him with planet Earth."

Jenny smiled as Kendra's face relaxed greatly – she knew that the Jamaica-born Slayer was very shy in dealing with anyone other than herself, and the simple fact that she was talking to another boy, let alone one who was even more of an outcast than Buffy and her friends, that was a large step for her. "Yes, Kendra, I do hope he is a nice boy – I doubt that he'd survive Xander's ire, let alone his ire with a mace in hand." Xander groaned at her as she brought up his rather protective nature of Kendra and the last vampire whom had gotten a little … 'fresh' with her – she wasn't sure that the human body, let alone one that was inhabited by a vampire, was made to bend that way, but Xander had turned the vampire into a pretzel, an act that Buffy had tried to duplicate several times unsuccessfully.

Kendra, from her place under Xander's arm, snickered at Jenny's comment, remembering not only the same event but also her first day at school and her first encounter with the football team – she had been asked to come to their locker room and 'warm them up', but Xander had stepped in at this point, very unamused, and told the boys that if they wanted to warm up, to ask 'Larry', "I'm sure he'd LOVE to help warm you boys up." Larry, whom had been one of her accosters, had immediately picked up on whatever Xander had been implying and had vehemently denied the accusations, but the seeds had already been planted and the group of males had gone away, leaving her alone.

Xander, for his part, just sniffed, "I tell ya, I get no respect."

(Later)

Jenny looked on as Xander tucked Kendra, whom had fallen asleep on the couch, into her bed and then stood up, and she could tell that something was bothering him; he had been overly protective of Kendra, but the way he had been acting as of late was out of the norm even of him. "Xander, what's wrong?"

Xander stepped away from the slumbering Kendra and walked out the Slayer's room, shutting the door, before answering, "I'm going away for a little while, Jenny."

She blinked at this – she had been expecting a great many things, ranging form the facts that he was gay, that he wanted to have both herself and Kendra in a threesome, or that he was Romany; him leaving had been the last thing from her mind, "What?"

Xander looked over at the bewildered Romany woman and smiled slightly at her, her nose scrunched up cutely, "I've been having these messages from Pelor over the past few nights and I think I know what they mean." He led her down to his room and, from out of the depths of his closet, pulled out numerous pieces of equipment that she did recognize, yet some of them she did not, until he found a tube of leather with several buckles, "He's been sending me stuff ever since I accepted the job as his Cleric, things like armor and weapons, but this … this came in yesterday."

Jenny looked over the map that was unrolled form the case and, immediately, she could see the immense scale of what Xander was looking at – it looked to be a blueprint of a castle, maybe something else, and it was a multiple-level structure that would inspire nightmares of any architect. Halls ten feet wide, walls easily two or three feet thick, blind corners, rooms that ranged from the size of a closet to that of a classroom, all kinds of nasty little drawing about, drawings of creatures and with several vital things about each even as she began to leaf through the pages of parchment, "Xander …"

"It is called a Dungeon, Jenny, and this is my first little job for Pelor." Xander told her, his voice sounding a touch defeated, "He's having me go to this place and join a party that is going to clean it out. The good news is that it isn't going to be too hard and will be a learning experience – the bad news is that somehow, a Drow has somehow gotten to this world, corrupted four witches and is at the bottom of this Dungeon." Xander took another deep breath and let it out slowly, "The worst of the bad news though, and probably the strangest bit, is that this place … is here, in our world."

Jenny gave the young Cleric a startled look, "What? How?"

He shrugged at her and Jenny, for a split second, didn't feel that much better about the situation that she had a few seconds before, "I don't know, neither does he – apparently the Drow did some mojo and he made his way across the Infernal Planes here, and this has Pelor and several of his other god-like friends very worried, so worried that they've sent some of their own people here to help take care of the problem."

She nodded at this, throwing her mind back to what he had told her and let her read about the other species in the game that was, in another dimension, reality – she had admitted to him that, in her younger days, she had been something of a gamer and had played, but what she was shocked to find out was that while some of the game statistics were correct, many were not; sizes, colorations, even temperaments towards other races had been wrong and from the looks of things, Xander was going to be playing referee if there were several races there. "When do you leave? How long are you going to be gone?"

"I leave tomorrow, sunrise, and I'm going to be gone about a week, at most." She blanched at his words and he raised his hands to her in an easing motion, "I know, the CPS lady is going to be here, but Pelor says that he has it all set up and worked around … and I trust him."

Jenny nodded at his words and sat down on his bed, obviously lost in thought even as he began to pull his gear out of his closet – it was pretty standard stuff, things he had seen in the game guides, but there were other things that had not been there as part of the starting packages, and things that he had added on since then. He didn't like his scale mail, but it was the only thing he could wear and put on with any kind of speed and use while he had his heavy mace and his crossbow, his pack had been a leather backpack that he had replaced with an outdoor backpack that had more pockets in it but, as a concession, was a bit bulkier than his other one. Some of the rather inferior tools that he'd been granted beforehand he had upgraded, things like a chunk of flint and some dry tender to a magnesium striker bar with a steel rat-tail file to pull across it, his mess kit had been replaced by an Army Surplus kit, as had some of his medical items (bandages, adhesives, and tweezers Pelor had allowed, but not things like Band Aids, non-toxic superglue, a penlight or .30 silk thread for suturing wounds). One other thing that he had been able to get past Pelor's scrutiny had been a replacement for the rather clumsy boots that he had been given as well – they were nice, but he much preferred the feel of steel-capped boots on his feet rather than just leather boots with little or no padding; he's also gotten a concession on another very important item of clothing – underwear. While going 'commando' or wearing what passed for boxers in the other world might have been fine for them, he was more of a briefs kind of guy.

She watched him prepare his kit even as her mind whirled on and on about what he was about to do – she had seen just what he had been capable of as far as fighting, even before he had been made a Cleric by Willow's botched attempt to help him, and then, of course, came that damnable Ethan Rayne and his Halloween episode; Xander had gone as a Soldier, a simple, generic solider, and since that night had been subject to horrific nightmares of wars in a distant land, lands that she believed to be Vietnam due to some of the names that he said while tossing and turning about in his nightmare-plagued sleep, and she had see some of that in his battles against the demons. Short, brutal attacks that often snapped bones and joints without much thought or any kind of remorse as he mercilessly clubbed the poor demon over the head with his mace (at which point a vampire was then divested of any and all things that could be construed as pawnable or usable, things like watches, rings, cash or necklaces). Now, though, he was going off to fight with others on what her mind termed as a 'Dungeon Crawl' and she wasn't sure just how she was taking it – she knew that she wasn't his mother, that she could not tell him 'no' and have him obey her without any kind of resentment or malice, but he had told her many times that she was his friend, someone he would listen to and, if he could, work with, and she knew that in this instance he would not be able to work with her.

"How do you plan to get there?" Jenny's question startled Xander out of his thoughts even as he began to pack away the last of his things – he knew that she was worried, how could she not be, and he felt like shit making her worry, but he had a job to do.

"Magical means, teleportation, most likely." She watched him pull out several final pieces of clothing and arrange them to be worn – boots, pants, a shirt and some gloves, but also his armor, belt, weapons and such, and he finally looked back at her, "Same way back – I'll be leaving from the house, though, so no worried about that."

Jenny nodded as she stood up and walked over, "Xander, I want you to be careful, okay? Believe it or not, I quite like the idea of you being around here to tell your jokes and to help us with your researching skills." She pulled him into a hug, one he returned, and they stayed there for several minutes, neither saying a word. Eventually, though, they released each other and she smiled at him, "I'm going to bed now, Xander – try not to make too much noise when you get ready to leave."

He gave her a half-grin, "What, the house or your bed?"

She smacked him on the shoulder, "Don't make me choose, Xander." With that, she walked out of his room, though he fancied that she had a little more sway in her hips as she left than when she normally walked. With her gone, though, his smile vanished and looked at his gear – tomorrow was going to be a long day.

(Next Morning)

Armed, dressed and packed, Xander felt the energies of Pelor surround him even as the living room, which held Kendra and Jenny, both of whom looked worried, faded away, and was replaced by a dry, repressively hot and arid setting with rocks, sand and, off in the distance, what looked to be a villa or a mansion.

"Who are you?" He turned in his armor, actually not tripping on his own feet, and came nose-to-sword point with a woman dressed in scale armor, her dark hair done up and her dark eyes glaring at him over her sword. She also wasn't alone as she saw a short man dressed also in scale armor, but bearing a large axe and a shield, and a pair of half-elves, if his eyes were right, one, a woman, dressed in the leathers of a rogue and the other, a male, without any kind of armor but with numerous arcane tattoos on his arms and chest.

A slight waver by the sword point near his nose brought him back to the original question, "Alexander, Cleric of Pelor – I take it you're also here for this mission?"

The Rogue shot him an irritated look, her face flushed with the heat of the area, "No, we're here working on darkening our complexions, Cleric."

Given her tone of voice and her pale complexion, Xander couldn't resist, "Then I'd say you need to take those leathers off and get into something suitably skimpy, honey, because you're not getting enough sun."

His quip got a rather unusual response – the Dwarf, who was holding the axe and a shield, turned and gave the Rogue a leering look, said Rogue had a shocked look on her face as she flushed again, though this time not from the heat, the other half-elf snickered at her and said something in a language he didn't understand and the other woman, the one with the sword pointed at him, smirked and put her sword away even as his eyes took in the emblem of Pelor that was tattooed on her arm, "Well met, Cleric – it is nice to meet one of Pelor's with an actual sense of humor."

He gave her a weak smile even as he shucked off his pack and his helmet, wiping his brow, "Jesus, it's hot out here – of all the places in the world, why pick Texas to build this damned dungeon?"

AN: Sorry about the long wait for this follow-up chapter, but I've had tons of other stories to write and try and make good (things I've done with varying degrees of success). So, what do you think? Questions, comments and critiques are welcomed, flames are not – AR.


	3. Chapter 3

3?

AN: Okay, before I get too far into this, let it be known NOW that I've been a DM 3 times – my skills in such an endeavor are nearly non-existent, so things will be wrong in this chapter, things like critters, tactics, even how to go about things. Again, I am sorry.

AN2: Also, the characters here are actually characters from a gaming group of my acquaintance – they needed a backstory to explain how they got some of their experience together, so I pitched this idea to them and they accepted. Thanks, guys (and girls).

(Dungeon – Level 1)

Paige was a fairly simple woman, as far as things went in her life – she had been a full Paladin of Pelor for nearly a year now and, while this was not her first sojourn into a Dungeon, it was the first time she had done so with a group as large and diverse as she was currently in. While she was taller and somewhat plain to look at, she did like the fact that her black hair was thick and made for easy keeping as she had it cropped very short around her head, something that the new Cleric, Alexander (or 'Xander', as he asked to be called), said worked well for her, given what he called a 'solid' stature. Even as she looked over her group, though, she was unsure just what they were to do as far as working together.

Alex … Xander was younger than she by two years, maybe three, and while he had a slim build, she could see the way he moved and could tell he had muscle to back it up – his eyes, darker than melted chocolate, were also always on the move though they had just entered the Dungeon and his mace was at the ready. She could tell that he would be rather jumpy for a while, as he admitted to her that this was his first 'dungeon crawl', as he called it, but he also had an air about him that bespoke of someone who was used to combat.

Oskar, however, was Xander's polar opposite – short, very muscular, seemingly at ease with his surroundings, he was the quintessential Dwarf in that he was raring to fight and had already been rather abrasive in that he would not stop leering at the Rogue or at herself. He was their melee fighter, their 'muscle' as it were, and while he filled the role very well, she could sense something else about him, a kind of sadness and anger that seemed to drape around him like a cloak – it would be only a matter of time before whatever it was came out.

Himo was a half-Elf Sorcerer who stood off to one side, his face cool and studious as he took in his surroundings with a manner that was that of someone in a library, scanning the shelves for a scroll – he was about a head taller than a normal elf, though thin, and with his dark hair and green eyes Paige had to admit that he was quite a looker, and the tattoos on his body did not deter her from thinking such impure thoughts. Paige's cheeks began to burn slightly as he looked over at her and nodded, shifting his short spear from one hand to the other before looking away to say something to the other member of their party.

Drusilia was also a half-Elf, but more of a sneaky rogue in general bearing and she was bouncing from one foot to the other with a nervous energy that made Paige also feel a touch uneasy – she was a few inches shorter than Himo, but she shared the same facial features, which brought to Paige's mind that if they were not brother and sister, then they were very close family indeed. At Himo's quiet words in the Elven tongue she stopped hopping from foot to foot and settled for removing one of her daggers and began to pick at her nails slightly.

"Paige," Xander's voice jolted her out of her reverie and she turned to look at him, "are you ready?"

She nodded and Xander felt his guts unclench slightly – he hated waiting, always had, and Soldier Boy had not made that any easier; memories of VC tunnels and dense jungles were assaulting his mind right then and it was taking just about everything he had to not break down. They'd been in the first twenty feet of the ten feet wide, seven feet tall tunnel for almost ten minutes now and in the back of his mind he could hear the Soldier screaming at him to stay frosty – easier said than done.

"Let us go on – this Dungeon will not clear itself," Paige finally said, pulling on her helmet and unsheathing her sword. "Xander, Himo, guard our rear, Drusilia, stay in front of them but behind myself and Oskar." They all nodded at this and they began to make their way down the well-lit hallway that had been hewn out of solid rock – it was not odd finding a Dungeon entrance within a natural formation such as rocks or caves, but what WAS odd was to find one that as so close to a homestead and, apparently, had been carved out to provide building materials for that same homestead. Xander had called it 'Hellmouthy', whatever that meant, but she understood the sentiment hat it was not of the norm in the area.

Dru, from her position between the two halves of the party, felt her guts unclench as she watched both the Paladin and Dwarf keep an eye on their front while her Sorcerer cousin and the Cleric both alternately switched from walking backwards and forwards, one doing on and the other doing the other. She found it odd that the Cleric was so young, let alone a cutie like he was, but then she remembered the remark he had made to her and this made her growl a little, a sound that made all parties stop and tense up for a moment.

"Dru, stop growling," Himo muttered to her even as he lowered the point of his spear.

Xander shook his head at the girl elf, who looked contrite, and went back to walking backwards as Himo walked forwards – it was a patrolling method called The Belfast Stroll, something he'd heard of somewhere or another, and it was quite effective when you wanted to watch your own back with a friend. From the map he'd been given, the Dungeon itself was a four-lobed reverse ziggurat in that each level had four main areas that all connected to a central hub and that each level was smaller than the first until you got to the bottom of the Dungeon, where the Witches and Drow supposedly were. Straight forwards and to the point, it was a fairly simplistic Dungeon, but in Xander's mind that made it all that much more dangerous in the end.

The group walked for what seemed like nearly twenty minutes in the lobe they were in, kicking open doors to small rooms once they were checked for traps, often finding nothing or small crocks that held the odd lump of preserved meat, which told Xander that these rooms were probably to be nothing more than mere storage, but they finally made it to the central hub, which held three more hallways and a stairway down. It was here that Paige stopped and looked at the others, "Which way do we go?"

Oskar shrugged, Himo 'hmm'ed, Drusilla yawned and Paige felt like crying until Xander spoke up – he pointed at each of the walls in turn, speaking as he did, "Enerie, menery, minery, moe." His finger was pointing at their right-most hallway, "I choose this one, so let us go."

Oskar glared at the Cleric, "Grow up, boy – fighting is serious business."

Xander just glared at the Dwarf, resisting the urge to make a comment about his height, as the book he had been reading about the different races said that such comments were taken very seriously and as insults to families as a whole, ones often followed up by a war of honor. That point remembered, he gave the Dwarf a crooked grin, "Come on, we haven't done more than walk around here – no fighting yet."

The Dwarf gave a disgusted growl, "I know! I want to fight."

"Do not ask for what we shall eventually find, Oskar," Paige said to the steaming Dwarf even as she watched Xander and Himo adjust their packs on their backs.

The Dwarf just grunted at her, but said nothing.

Himo looked at the Cleric and frowned slightly, "What spell was that, the one you just cast? I've never heard of it."

The Cleric smiled at him slightly, "It's a modified nursery rhyme from where I come from, part of a cartoon." Himo gave him a perplexed look and the Cleric amended, "Um, animated pictures? Tend to be funny?" Himo shook his head and the Cleric shook his head, "Never mind – it was a joke."

(20 minutes later)

The newness of the entire situation was officially gone and dead in Xander's mind even as they finished clearing the second lobe, another area filled with more apparent storage rooms, and he, like the Dwarf, was starting to get more than a little surly about the entire lack of action when a sound made him stop cold in his tracks.

Himo, apparently, heard it too as he stopped next to him and whistled to the rest of the party, calling them to a halt.

All was silent for several moments, the occasional crackle of a heatless torch heard, and then they all heard the sound that had stopped him in the first place – a skittering noise, one that sounded like things he'd heard in movies, creepy crawly things that would make Willow screech when they appeared and often ended up killing one of the movie heroes. In response to this, Xander swung his mace in a short arc to loose his arm while Himo held his spear at the read, and Xander could hear Oskar's grip tighten on the haft of his axe while both Dru and Paige moved their blades through the air.

It was about the size of an old rotary telephone, the kind every grandchild had to beg their grandparents to update and 'step out of the seventies', with eight legs, black, mirror-like, kaleidoscope-like eyes, black, green and brown coloring – basically, it was uglier than home-made sin and it was looking at them with ichor dripping from it's inch-long fangs. In the back of his mind, Xander knew that Willow, had she been there, would have been setting land-speed records to get away from the thing.

Himo swore something in what Xander believed was Elven as the thing advanced, the ichor that dripped from it's fangs eating holes in the floor of the corridor they were in, stopping long enough to look at him, "Do you think it's alone?"

Xander wanted to hit Himo, hard and repeatedly, for asking the question, as several other of the spiders appeared from around the corner, "If we live through this, remind me to tell you about a guy named 'Murphy' and how it's a bad idea to taunt him, Himo."

En masse, the spiders rushed them in a skittering wave of six as the group prepared to meet them, one of the spiders pausing only slightly before it launched itself at Xander – Xander, who wasn't exactly a fan of spiders thanks to Willow's rants about them, spun out of the way and swung for the fences with his mace, connecting with the arachnid and splattering it as another skittered past him and towards Dru.

Dru looked on in dread at the thing skittering towards her as the cleric batted one out of the air with his mace – she didn't like spiders, no, she LOATHED spiders, and these were dripping icky stuff that was eating the rock of the floor. That said, she did the one thing that came naturally when one was confronted with something they did not like – she screeched and stomped her foot down on top of it, smashing it into a messy paste and not stopping until she was quite sure it was dead.

Oskar snorted at the half-elf female even as he brought his axe down and split one down the middle while he bashed another one out of the air with his shield, which sailed towards the Paladin. He had to admire a woman who could not only wield a sword as well as she did, but also bat a flying arachnid away to only have it speared by a half-Elf Sorcerer, who had another spider on his short spear. Now, if she only were a Dwarf instead of a human …

Paige looked around and counted, quickly, that the seven spiders they had started with were now seven very DEAD spiders, though Dru did appear to be continually stomping on the one that had charged her – first encounter with the enemy and they were all still alive, in her mind that was a victory, so she touched her emblem of Pelor and thanked him for his protection from the evil things.

Sadly, it was Oskar who broke the moment of joy by snarling at Dru, "Girl, you do NOT screech at the enemy like a banshee and then stomp on it. You face them with honor, with PRIDE, and then make sure their last sight is you holding the weapon they were killed with."

Dru drew herself up to her modest height, though her pale complexion was flushed with both embarrassment and anger, and stormed over to where she almost towered over the Dwarf, her green eyes blazing, "Don't think to tell me what to do in combat, short-stuff! I like being able to walk away from a fight without a scratch on me, not like a brainless twit like you or even a front-liner like Paige – I use my brains in combat."

Oskar's eyes went dangerously flat even as he drew himself up to his not-so-impressive height, growling slightly, but he never got a word off as Paige stepped between them even as Xander snaked his hand around Dru's waist and pulled her away, allowing Paige to speak, "Oskar, now is not the time or the place to discuss the particulars of combat, especially with Dru – in case you haven't noticed, she's not exactly built for combat."

Oskar snarled at the Paladin, "Then she has no reason to BE here! If she wants to be some kind of sneak thief, then let her but I won't have someone I can't trust in a sortie like this."

"Who are you calling a sneak thief you sorry excuse for Orc droppings?" Dru wiggled and tried to get free from Xander's grip, but he wasn't having any of it, "I'm good at what I do!"

Xander felt his temper flaring even as Dru's wiggling against him and taunting of Oskar did little but exacerbate the situation, but Himo apparently hit his limit first as he snarled out, "Enough!" He watched as the Sorcerer's eyes began to glow slightly even while said Sorcerer walked up to his now-still race-mate, whom he snarled at in a language that Xander couldn't understand – whatever Himo said, though, it was enough to make the half-elf in his grip calm down and even wilt a little while he went off to confront the now-nervous Dwarf.

Paige gulped as the simmering Sorcerer approached her and Oskar's position, but she held her ground like a Paladin should while he hissed out, "Know this, Dwarf – while my cousin may indeed be questionable in her chosen profession, I will NOT allow her to be degraded like some common street rat by someone who has known her for less than a day. Any more insults to her, you deal with ME." Paige was sure that, with those last words, she wet herself even as the Sorcerer stalked away and Oskar let out a quiet sigh of relief.

The fun, however, was not over as Xander put Dru down and stalked over to where Oskar was, grabbing him by the collar of his armor and hoisting him several inches off of the ground, snarling something at the Dwarf too quiet for her to hear, but it was apparently enough that Oskar quickly nodded his ascension to Xander's words and was put back on the ground, letting Xander speak, "Everyone form the fuck up – we need to get moving."

(2 hours later)

Again, Xander was bored as he and Himo finished tailing the others, having cleared out a third lobe, not finding a damned thing in the rooms – whoever these people were, they hadn't been stocking up for a rainy day, that much was for damned sure. They'd come across about a dozen jars so far with enough preserved food in them to keep a rat or two alive for a month, but had yet to come across a source of water, let alone something that looked like either a cistern or a toilet.

It was at this point that Paige called a stop their little quest and they took five minutes to sit down or readjust their packs – in Xander's eyes, she was shaping up to be a half-decent leader, but while she was good at giving orders, keeping her people in line was a bit of a problem. Oskar and Dru had been sniping at one another the entire time, making the odd comment or giving the other a dark look, never once crossing the line, though, where Himo would come down on them, and she had done nothing about it yet.

He knew that the Sorcerer himself was doing his best to keep his now-revealed cousin in line, but Xander could see that Himo was also having another problem of some kind, and for the life of him Xander couldn't figure out what it was. Said sorcerer was sitting against the wall, looking as if were meditating, and Xander didn't feel like disturbing him.

Oskar was off to one side, glaring at Dru, who glared right back at him, even as he ran a whetstone over his axe's edge in a slow, easy motion – Xander wasn't sure what to make of the guy, but whatever his problem was, it was enough to keep him on the edge of brooding like Deadboy all the time.

Dru was the exact opposite – she was sitting down, busily twiddling her thumbs, occasionally looking over at him or at her cousin, but doing little other except to nibble on something she took out of her hip satchel. He could see she was a ball of nervous energy, looking for a place to explode – he hoped it wasn't in battle, because that would get people killed.

"You worry to much, Cleric," Paige said with a good-natured tone of voice as she walked over and sat next to him, her slightly-tanned skin dabbed with sweat here and there as the sun outside heated the rock up even more.

He gave her a look even as he took a pull off of his canteen, "And you don't worry enough, Lady Paladin."

She snorted, "Call me Paige, Xander – some of our kind take the title of 'Cleric' or 'Paladin' far too seriously, but I don't." She leaned back and took a sip from her own jug of water before nibbling on something that looked like a hardtack biscuit, "So, how did you get roped into this?"

"Pelor asked me to come here." She gave him a look that clearly said 'you're nuts' and he went on, "I'm not from where you are, Paige, and Pelor doesn't naturally exist in my world – I'm his Cleric because of a botched spell meant to enhance my fighting powers; instead of becoming a Templar Knight, though, I was drafted by Pelor."

Oskar looked over at him, "So you are not a warrior by training?"

"No, I'm a student – my world is different from yours, apparently, and for the most part we don't fight wars like you do anymore." The Dwarf looked at him as if he'd grown a third head and he went on, "We fight at distances now that are not possible with magics from where you are, we kill in ways that could sicken even the strongest warrior and give the most evil person around pause, things like wiping out an entire castle and it's surrounding villages just by spraying some liquid into the air or dropping it into the water supply." Xander shivered as some of the more ingenious ways to kill people came to his mind unbidden, "Devices that can eradicate all living life, but it leaves structures alone, others that destroy any and everything short of a large mountain, and even then it will kill hundreds, thousands, even millions over decades and more."

Both Himo and Dru were gaping at him in mute horror at his descriptions, Paige not far behind, but Oskar was the first one to regain his speaking abilities, "Why … why would humans come up with such horrible things?"

"To save lives some would say, while others day to keep others from challenging us." Xander shook his head and leaned it back against the stone wall, "We have rules that we follow, and such things aren't used unless there is no other choice … well, by our side. Other humans in other countries use weapons like this as bargaining chips, as weapons of fear … and it works."

Paige looked at the cleric for several seconds before shaking her head, "Humans on your world are insane, Xander."

Himo spoke up next, "Such things are not natural."

Dru spoke up as well, "You don't have any of those things, do you?"

Xander shook his head, "No, those are controlled mostly by the military, Dru – don't worry your pale little head off."

She growled at him, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with not liking the sun! I don't color well, to begin with – it's this or burnt, not middle ground."

He shook his head and stood back up, putting his stuff away and pulling his pack back on, "Then when this is over I'm throwing you outside without your clothes – burn enough and you'll build up a tan." She squealed at him even as Oskar choked at something, but they all got to their feet, "Alright, peoples – forward march!"

(Four hours later)

Dru hissed as Xander pulled the splint around her ankle tight, gripping a hand-sized rock even as both Paige and Himo were securing the room they were going to settle down in for the night – the final lobe of the level, naturally, was the biggest and most exhaustive in that it had dozens of inter-connecting rooms but only two ways in and out of it, and it had taken them a while to clear them all. It did hold, though, a source of water, several dozen beds, and places to set fires to cook on, if necessary, or for heat.

"Better?" Xander was a nice guy, for a cleric and a human, and while he was still very cute in her eyes, in the past few hours he had shown her a bit more of a darker side of him than she wanted to see – she and Oskar had been arguing about checking a door for a trap, something that was a good thing to do, when Xander had told them to stop fighting like an old married couple before kicking the door in with a spin kick. He'd told them both that time was money and they had wasted enough of both of his before stalking off into the next room, leaving them and their other companions alone in the modest common room.

She nodded slightly, doing her best to not shift her ankle too much; she'd turned it slightly after stepping on a loose stone that made up a small fire pit and only Paige's quick reflexes kept her from possibly breaking her leg, "I should be okay." He nodded and began to put away his things, some of which intrigued her, "What's that?"

He looked at her and she indicated a small purple pouch that had drawstrings of some gold rope and golden lettering on the side, 'Crown Royal', "Just some loose stuff I couldn't find a place for in my pack." He opened the modest pouch and poured out a handful of things, ranging from lumps of waxy stuff around fibers to a piece of steel strapped to another piece of metal with some odd chain, "Fire-making stuff."

Paige looked over at where Dru was being tended to by Xander and shook her head slightly while Oskar finished splitting some wood into smaller chunks – both members of her party were young, Xander at only 16 and Dru at 18, Himo was 20, she was 20 and Oskar was the 'old man', as Xander put it, at nearly 135 years old. They were a diverse group, one with more than a few sticking points like Dru's attitude towards Oskar, Oskar's towards women in combat, Himo's apparent lack of a sense of humor (honestly, Xander's joke with the fake snake HAD been funny, though), Xander's many hidden facets and her own seeming lack of leadership traits. She wasn't a leader, never asked to be, but apparently the group had somehow elected her to be so … and it scared her to death.

"Do not worry so much, oh fearless leader," Himo spoke up quietly as he secured the final of four doors into the 25 foot by 25 foot room, one complete with beds, a small reservoir of water and the afore-mentioned firepit that Oskar was now preparing. The half-elf male walked over and sat next to her, starting to pull some things out of his own pack to eat, "It will give you wrinkles."

She arched a dark eyebrow at him and saw his green eyes twinkle a bit and she shook her head at the sorcerer, "It's the leader's job to worry, Himo – do you want it? It's yours if you do."

Himo shook his head, "No, I'm not the leading type, and don't make that offer to Oskar – he's insufferable enough as it is."

She snorted and pulled out some dried meat from her pack, along with a few other things, "I will do my best to keep that in mind." She heard Dru hiss slightly as Xander worked her boot back onto her foot, "What do you think of our cleric, though? He's … odd."

Himo arched his own dark eyebrow, "Aside from his sense of humor, he seems … harder, if that's the term I want, than most clerics I've met." Himo pulled out some sealed packets of things from his own pack, grabbing a bowl that was nearby and dumping the contents into it, "He reminds me more of a warrior than he does a cleric, but at the same time … there's this feel about him that makes my skin crawl slightly."

She nodded even as the scents of spices and fruits hit her nose from the mix that Himo had put into the bowl, "I know what you mean, but his instincts are right-on, though." Xander's 'gut feeling' had stopped her from opening a cabinet that was trapped to fire off spikes into the opener's chest and, later, had kept Dru from sitting down on a bed that had a rather large snake inside of it, a snake that Himo had killed with the same kind of ferocity that Dru had shown with her spider, and that was on top of his hearing the spiders earlier. "If nothing else, that's earned him a reprieve from you hitting him with any spells for the snake joke earlier."

Himo shivered, "I hate snakes! They aren't natural creatures as far as I am concerned, regardless of what any Druid tells you."

Dru, with Xander's assistance, hobbled over towards them and sat down heavily even as Oskar started the fire, grunting as she landed on the bed closest to them, "Snakes are very natural creatures, cousin, and trust me, I remember the arguments you and grandfather used to get into over the matter." She reached into her own pack and removed several items and put them into a bowl too, Paige immediately smelling the pungent spices used to season and cure them as well, "Spiders, on the other hand, aren't natural."

"They are very natural, sadly," Xander chipped in from where he was digging through his pack, "though my friend Willow does agree with the both of you on all things creepy and crawling, or slithering, for that matter." He removed several things from his pack and began to tear into the oddly-reflective covering, though it looked to be a very drab green color and remove things from it with a grimace, muttering, "Note to self – being real food next time."

He looked at the old MRE in front of him and tore into the package that supposedly contained dehydrated beef stroganoff and pouring water into it – some of his more vivid Soldier memories were the food and some of the more inventive ways that they had been described, and even though the memories didn't actually happen, he wasn't looking forwards to eating the 'food'.

"Great Pelor, Xander, what IS that?" He looked over at Paige, who was wrinkling her nose up even while both Dru and Himo looked ready to lose their appetites for the next few decades, not that he could blame them.

"It's called an MRE, or a meal ready to eat … or a meal recently excreted, depending on whom you ask – not exactly the best stuff on the planet, but you can live off of it." He squeezed the top of the entrée shut and left it off to the side before scrounging the rest of the food up, "Soldiers in my world eat these in the field when they can't get to a mess tent – has all sorts of goodies in here, ranging from shelf-stable bread and cookies to preserved veggies and such." He held up the vegetable package and read the package, "Supposedly this is creamed corn – I'll reserve judgment until later."

Oskar looked around, "No beer?"

Xander gave him an odd look, "Beer? In a combat zone?" He shook his head, "Nope, not in my world … at least, it's not supposed to be – sure at base is another thing, but not in the field." He opened the vegetable and poured it into the top portion of the old surplus mess kit he'd brought with him, seeing that, indeed, it looked like creamed corn, "Like I said, it's not supposed to taste good, just keep you going."

Himo put on a small pot of water to boil and shivered, "Is there anything that can be called 'food' in that monstrosity, Xander?"

She watched him smile and he pulled out something else, a small package of brightly-colored pills, "Yup – guys and girls, these are M&M's™. Candy-coated chocolate that melt once they are in your mouth due to your body heat, and do so in your hand, too, if you hold them long enough." This confirmed it for Dru as she shook her head – humans were crazy.

Later, their meals (or what passed for them in the cleric's case) eaten and digesting, Paige having watched Xander cast a small healing spell on Dru's ankle, the group was settling down for the night, Himo being the first to take a shift as guard – he'd be followed by Dru, then Xander, Paige and then Oskar. The night passed quietly for them all, not a sound being heard to where at first light they were all up, packed and ready to go about clearing yet another part of the dungeon.

(2 days later – 1100 hours)

The last of Xander's curative magic worked itself upon Himo's stomach wound even as Xander worked hurriedly to stop Dru's heavily-bleeding leg – they had been besieged for the past few hours by rank upon rank of spiders of various sizes, bugs of all kinds and, much to their dismay, a few skeletons that appeared to have been … recently used.

"More pressure, Oskar," Xander snapped at the Dwarf, who was holding the tourniquet on Dru's leg. One of the skeletons had gotten in a lucky hit with his axe and had cut Dru high on the thigh, nicking the femoral artery, and Xander wasn't sure if he could stop the bleeding enough to try and heal it – Paige had drained herself of healing spells already and he had one left … and the day was still fairly young, so he was dredging through his memories to see if there was anything else they could do.

The dwarf snarled at him, "If I use any more pressure I'll snap her leg in twain, Cleric!"

He reached over and grabbed a needle Paige had been using to sew up Himo and some stitching material she'd also broken out, "Avoid that, but slow the bleeding more – I'm going to try something."

"Try your magic!"

He looked over at the Dwarf now and snarled, "I'm trying to avoid that, you short, stubborn, goat-faced son of a bitch! If I do this right, the spell won't be needed."

"And you're suddenly a surgeon, CLERIC?" How DARE the human boy call him stubborn!

"No, I'm a field medic, ass-wipe!" He started stitching the artery very carefully, closing the one-inch gap in the wall of the once blood-filled tube, "I just patch people up long enough to get them to a surgeon." He worked slowly, carefully, using what very little Soldier Boy had learned about field medicine and what he'd picked up from reading those big medical books of Willow's mom, Sheila, when they were younger – if he didn't do this right, he'd have to use that last spell of his to heal the wound to the point Dru wouldn't die.

Several long, tense minutes later, he pulled away from the open wound and looked up at the slightly-green Dwarf, "Alright, Oskar, let up on the pressure a little … and pray."

He nodded at the Cleric and slowly let up the pressure he'd been holding on the strap that went around the half-elf's leg – at first, nothing appeared to happen, but soon he could see the artery slowly inflate with blood and pulse slightly as the Cleric let out a slow, almost strangled sigh of relief before he clipped the stitching he'd been using on the girl, "What is it?"

Xander looked up at Oskar, "It's holding, for now – she's part Elf, so she'll heal quicker than a human will and, by this evening, I'll be able to cast the spell and be sure that nothing else is wrong."

Himo looked over at the Cleric as he went about closing his cousin's wound, feeling at odds with the methods used – the Dwarf had a point, the boy could have used the spell to heal Dru, but on the reverse Xander had a point to save the spell for later on, once Dru started healing naturally, "Tell me, Cleric, where you learned that technique."

"Memories of a past possession, Himo," Xander said with his back turned to him, busily, though carefully, covering Dru's mostly-exposed thigh. "Chaos mage took a long-standing tradition of dressing up as characters from other times and place, worked his magic and we became our costumes that night – I was a generic soldier from my world, one who had some very basic medical training."

Himo arched his eyebrow at this, "That was very basic?"

"Yeah – vascular repairs like that are generally done with staples, not needles and thread … something I'm going to have to look into when I get done with this place."

Paige spoke up, "And you still have these memories?" She watched Xander stop and shudder slightly, which caused her to look over at Himo, who nodded, causing her to ask, "What is it?"

"Yeah, I have his memories – trust me, most of the times I really wished I didn't." She watched Xander finish covering Dru's very pale leg and put away his things before he turned back to them, his eyes haunted, "I could have done without some of those memories."

"You save my cousin's life with those memories, Xander – I'd thank whoever did the spell for them." Himo spoke with a sage tone in his voice, but that tone didn't save him from the glare that Xander sent his way, a glare that could have incinerated that Dwarf that had taken to harassing his cousin.

"I was sixteen, Himo – SIXTEEN! Trust me, it took over a month before I got a good night's sleep and, even today, I still have flashbacks – places I've never been, things I've never done … people I've never met yet I've killed … tell me that's not fucked up and I'll give you all the answers you'll ever want or need." Himo could see the darkness in Xander's eyes, the memories and the terror, and he knew that the Cleric's mind, while it would not snap, would bend under the pressure.

Oskar stumped his way over, the greenish cast gone from his face as he looked over to where Dru was laying, "What do we do now, Paladin?"

Paige froze at the question, not sure she wanted to answer the question – Himo was hurt, so was Dru, and both she and Xander were reduced to little or no magic on their part, "I … I'm not sure."

Xander looked around into the small room that Oskar had backed them into while defending them so they could stabilize both injured half-elves, "Advise we should set up for the night – we have shelter, water and only one way in or out – it'll be tough getting out tomorrow, but this way we can conserve our energy and let our wounded heal."

She nodded at Xander, "Good idea – Oskar, bar the door, Xander, help me move Himo."

As they moved the injured magic-user, Paige's mind was still whirling even as the pair of them moved the injured man – why was it she was being asked to lead them? Himo's voice, however, broke her out of her thoughts, "Paige, calm down – we'll be fine."

She looked up at him and Xander spoke this time, "He's right, Paige – Crawls are dangerous, fact of life, so don't let it get to you too much."

She shot him a dirty look, "This is your first 'Crawl', Xander, so don't give me anything like that!"

He gave her a flat, yet oddly amused, look, "Paige … I wasn't always a Cleric." She glared at him some more and he relented, "Look, you're young, and trust me you won't be the first person to crack under the pressure of leadership – it happens."

Himo picked up there, "He's right, Paladin Paige – you are young, and you will one day make a fine leader, but do not believe you will not make mistakes. Mistakes are natural – learn from them." Himo then frowned and asked, "Did that sound as … passé, I believe the term is, to you as it did to me?"

Paige felt her ire leaving her even as Xander chuckled slightly, "That's one of the terms, actually, but you're right, Himo." He looked at her and she felt a touch of a grin cross her lips, "Well? You learn anything?"

"That you two need to not try and be comedians – you're terrible at it." Both males gave her wounded looks, though in Himo's case it was more realistic given that he WAS wounded, and she went on, "Now bad acting, that could be a good way to go."

Xander sniffed and looked at Himo, "I tell you we get no appreciation for what we do, Himo."

The half-elf male nodded seriously, "True, but remember, she is only a woman, so she cannot appreciate what it is to be male." He noticed that Xander stepped back and let him take the full brunt of Paige's glare, which made him look at Xander again, "You are abandoning me?"

Xander nodded at him, "You remember what I told you about taunting that guy, Murphy?" The conversation about tempting fate with words and phrases came to mind and Himo nodded, letting Xander go on, "Double that for taunting women – unless you KNOW you can't be hurt by them, don't say things like that."

Paige steeped at the half-elf slightly even as she felt her sense of humor began to catch on to the joke that had been made, a good one when she thought about it, but she wasn't going to let the pointy-eared man off without sweating a little – she remedied this by turning away and stalking off.

Himo gave Xander a very worried look, "Do you believe we offended her?"

Xander shook his head, "Nah, she got the joke – you're just going to pay later on."

He gave Xander a look, "You were making the joke too."

"I wasn't the one who made the crack about her being only a woman." He gave Xander a wounded look even as he heard Oskar snort, but Xander just shrugged, "Rule One, never say something to a woman's back that you wouldn't say to her face – it generally hurts less if you say it to their face."

Oskar looked at the cleric, "You've been married?"

The cleric shook his head, though he wore an amused look, "No, just a very unhealthy number of female friends."

Oskar raised an eyebrow at the boy even as both Paige and Himo looked at him as well, "You had your own harem, then?"

The glare that Oskar got shot made Paige infinitely happy that she was on such good terms with Xander as he spoke clearly, though his tone was a touch chilly, "No, Dwarf – they were my friends, of the non-sexual variety."

Dru's groggy voice came from the far side of the room, the sedative that Paige had given her obviously wearing off quickly, "And that … makes you an expert … how?" He got up and walk over to her quickly, pulling back the covering he'd thrown over her exposed thigh and checking the recently-closed wound – yes, there was blood, but that was to be expected, but what he didn't expect was that it looked like her natural healing was already grabbing hold as it appeared some of the weaker parts of the sewing were already scabbed over. When he looked up, she could see a hint of mirth sparkling in her green eyes as she grinned wryly at him, "So, am I going to live, oh mighty Cleric of Pelor?"

She was glad to see that he still had his humor, the one thing she really did like about this cleric, as he gravely told her, "I'm sorry, Drusilia, but we're going to have to take the leg off at the knee – if you want, we can go ahead and call you 'hop-along ' now."

She smiled at him and chuckled until a stab of pain from her leg took her breath away as she gasped and fell back slightly – the pain dulled, slightly, over the next few minutes as her breathing returned, but it was then that she felt something cool and creamy being applied to her thigh, which caused her to look down to see Xander doing just that, "What is that?"

"A numbing agent Paige gave me earlier – it'll keep the pain down in the area I worked on," Xander told her even as he used the wooden applicator the pot had in the lid, one that reminded him of the paste bottles they had used as kids. It would be a few more hours before the stuff wore off and, by then, he'd be ready to do the spell that would finish the healing. It was then that he saw a few pale fingers sliding down to the area and then up her thigh, "What are you doing?"

Dru glared at him, "What did you do to my leathers?"

"He had to cut them away, Dru," Paige said from over his shoulder, drawing the half-elf's glare.

"He WHAT?" She turned her glare back on the cleric, who didn't move at all as he met her eyes without fear, "Do you KNOW how much these cost? I'm NOT going to walk around the rest of this dungeon half-dressed, Cleric, just for your visual entertainment."

He glared right back at her and, for a second, Dru marveled at the depths of his eyes as he spat, "Little lady, let me clue you into something VERY quickly – while I do admit you're not exactly hard on the eyes, I have other things to do than to ogle you, and add to that you're a touch pale for me and your leathers can be sewn back together."

She glared at him again as she sat up, bringing her face closer to his, "Well excuse me for not being sun bronzed like Paige over there – I told you I don't sun well, I burn!"

He moved his face closer to hers, her green eyes spitting fire, "Short stints in the sun, no more than half of a candle mark a day, for a week should clear that up – yes, you will burn, but it'll be easier to sun each time!"

His face was just a few inches from hers, so she shifted her body slightly and drew it closer, "Don't tell me what to do, Cleric."

"I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just advising you, Dru." He tried to pull back but, to his shock, she didn't let him as she grabbed the edge of his armor and pulled him closer to where her nose and his were touching, "If you're going to kill me, can it wait?"

She grinned at the young cleric and rubbed her nose across his a few times, "No, that'd make it hard for me to do this." Before he could so anything else, she pulled him forwards and kissed him quickly before she pulled back and shifted away to lay down, "Now run along, Cleric – I have healing to do." She smiled tiredly even as he nodded and walked away somewhat unsteadily – this was going to be fun.

Paige smiled at the young man as he half-stumbled over her way, something that made Oskar snicker and Himo chuckle, "Tell me that you DID see she was manipulating you the entire time, Cleric – if you did not see that, I shall weep for your species." The blank look he gave her was all she needed to know, "Ah, I take it that was your first kiss, then?"

"Yes and no." He sat down next to her, "First one I don't like to remember, namely because I was in a very bad place at the time, but this one …" She smiled at him a little even as he shook his head and began to take off his armor, "She's sneaky."

Oskar snorted at this even as he began to light the fire, "Trust me, boy, they only get more devious as you get old and twice so if you marry them."

Himo grunted as he sat up a little more, his curiosity piqued, "You were married?"

Oskar's face became blank as he started the fire, "Yes, I was."

Xander heard the tone used, knowing it was a delicate subject, but Paige went on before he could stop her, "Where is your wife? Surely she would have you with her than here with us?"

Xander winced as Oskar snorted and added a little fuel to the fire, "She is with our child in the realm of the dead, Paladin, and I shall speak no further of it."

Paige winced at the emotion she could hear in Oskar's voice and she nodded, looking both at Dru and Himo to see them nod as the subject was promptly dropped.

(Later)

Dru hissed as the last of the healing magics from Xander worked on her leg, making her feel sore, but whole even as he wrapped the leather of her pants leg back around her thigh, "I'm going to make you buy me a new pair, Cleric."

Xander groaned, "Jesus, you're worse than Cordy about clothes, Dru."

She gave him an odd look, seeing potential in the name and the tone used, "Who?"

Xander snorted even as she, as she told him she would do, began to take off her leathers so he could sew them back together (she was just thankful that she had remembered to put on a loin cloth that morning) as he looked away from her, "She's … well, I guess you could almost call her a friend from back home, but she's TOTALLY fixated on her clothes – harm them at your own risk."

Dru smiled at him as she flipped her breeches over his shoulder and pulled on a pair of loose 'shorts', as Xander had called them, to cover herself while the other were off to the side, "So … were you two involved?"

Xander took her pants and began to calmly stitch them back together, something he had, oddly enough, picked up from Soldier Boy – why the soldier knew how to sew, he didn't want to know, let alone ask, as he might get the answer, "In a way – we'd been sniping at each other for as long as we could remember, verbal sparring and put downs, you know, the usual … but something happened not long ago."

Dru flopped next to him as he began to stitch the top of her breeches, "Oh? Let me guess, you kept things secret, you two were in out of the way places … inspecting each other."

He looked over at her and she was somewhat sad to see his odd look, "What? No … we never got that far." The memories came out in his eyes, Dru could see that much, as he shook his head, "We were, once, doing that … but she stopped me and said that she had a secret to tell me." Dru motioned to him to hurry along and he sighed, "She's gay, Dru – she just needed to kiss a guy she knew she had once been attracted to in order to prove it … and I happened to be that guy." She felt her jaw drop even as he went on as if he'd not stopped, "All of those years of sniping at me was her way of declaring friendship, apparently …"

Dru blushed heavily at the thought of it – she didn't understand the way he meant 'gay' because to her it meant happy and joyous, but she knew another term for what he had described in part, a term that she whispered, an Elvish term that made her cousin, who was mostly asleep, perk up slightly, "You mean that she … does not couple with men? That … that isn't normal."

Xander just shrugged at her as he continued his tight stitching, "Normal, not normal, not my call, Dru – it's her choice and I don't judge." His lips then quirked up, though, as another errant thought came to mind, "Though I can't say who was more surprised at her turn of sexuality – me, or my best friend, Willow." Dru arched her eyebrow at him and he went on, "Cordy came out of the closet … revealed her sexual nature, that is, by kissing Willow in front of God and everybody."

He looked over at Dru and saw her doing her best impersonation of a light bulb with as brightly as she was blushing even as Paige got up from where she had fallen asleep, given there was little to do and Oskar was tending to Himo, "Is she okay, Xander?"

He nodded at Paige, who sat next to Dru and began to inspect her thigh, which held only a light scar, "She'll be fine, Paige, just a little embarrassed, that's all."

Dru shot him a glare, "You're telling me that your best FEMALE friend and this girl, 'Cordy', regularly sleep together … and you're okay with that?"

He shot a look back at Dru, "To the best of my knowledge they've never slept together, save when they fall asleep at the Library table after a hard night of research … and if they had done that, I'd be mad because I didn't get to watch." This time he was shot a look by both women, the fable feminine death glare that had robbed so many men of not only their manhood, but their sanity, but it rolled off his back as he'd been shot the same glare by not only a natural redhead, but by Slayers, too, "What? I'm a guy and the thoughts of two or more women doing the hot, sweaty naked dance of love … intrigues me, the same with any man and even some women, too."

Off to one side, he heard two grunts of approval from both Oskar and Himo, both of whom covered them with coughs rather skillfully. This went unnoticed by the two women who were both looking at him as if they were deciding to squash him like a bug – finally, it was Paige who spoke up, "Well, I guess we can't fault you too much – you're only a male, after all."

Dru nodded, "Yes, the inferior of any species."

Xander, knowing this was partial payback for what Himo had said earlier, kept his mouth shut, but sadly neither Himo nor Oskar had that much survival instinct as they both raised their voices at the slur that had been made against them and all males – Xander shrunk down and hid his eyes away as the two women turned their baleful gaze upon the half-elf and the Dwarf, turning The Look upon them. For several moments there was nothing to be heard, but then Xander heard what sounded distinctly like a whimper and peeked out to see Himo now curled into a ball and Oskar not far behind as the two woman turned away, presumably smiling.

Even as he continued his stitching, he was fully aware of Oskar stumping over and growling at him, "Boy, what do you think that you are doing? Not even my WIFE had the nerve to give me that look, and you abandon the both of us to it?"

From his spot, Himo could see the amused look on Xander's face as he replied to Oskar's rather angry and slightly-off-putting question, "Because, Oskar, I was balancing the scales from earlier and you just happened to get caught in the crossfire."

Oskar arched up slightly at the seated Cleric, who was calmly sewing Dru's leathers back together, "If you think that you shall get out of this that lightly, Cleric, you are SORELY mistaken." Himo winced at the tone in the Dwarf's voice even as Xander looked up from his sewing and was almost eye-level with the Dwarf – this did not bode well.

From their position, Dru watched as Xander put side his stitching and stood up against the armor-wearing Dwarf, wincing in time with Paige as he growled out, "Oskar, don't make threats you aren't able to back up."

Oskar reached behind his armored back and pulled out a dagger he kept there just in case, "Boy, I do not make idle threats, and you will PAY for bringing me into a place no widowed Dwarf need be!"

The boy had the nerve to roll his eyes at him, "Oh, get over it – yeah, your wife and kid are dead, harsh but it happens. Don't start thinking you're the only person on the block who has ever lost someone, Oskar, because trust me, everyone here has lost someone close to them, but not all of us use it as a means to our own end."

"You know not of what you speak, Cleric," Paige heard Oskar growl, though she could pick up the distinct surprise in his voice – what was going on? "I will see my wife and child again one day in the next world, but if you think I will let you have entertainment at my expense, you are wrong."

Before she could say anything to stop the fight, though, Oskar lashed out with his knife and came within inches of Xander's stomach, but the cleric bent back out of the way and jumped off to the side even as Oskar recovered, "Don't do this! We have other problems and fighting each other isn't going to help!"

Xander never took his eyes off of the angry Dwarf, "No, Paige, this is the perfect time to do this – stop us if we go for the kill." Even as he finished speaking Oskar dashed forwards, snarling again, and Xander was shocked by the speed in the man even as he ducked off to the side and avoided another knife thrust, but this time only barely – this wasn't going to be fun or easy.

Oskar looked at the boy even as his mind screamed at him to calm down – this was not the way a warrior fought, not with his allies, but he ignored his mind even as the boy took up an unarmed stance against him, "Boy, draw your weapon!"

The cleric just smiled at him slightly, "I don't need to, Dwarf – I am the weapon." Oskar snorted at this and dashed forwards again, but this time the boy vaulted over him and, in doing so, caused him to trip and skid against the ground, right into one of the beds that were there, making him see stars.

Himo watched as Xander vaulted over Oskar and, as he did so, shoved the muscular Dwarf off-balance and send him sliding into the bed and wall – it wasn't as if a Cleric of Pelor was trained in this manner of fighting, so Himo was more than a little shocked as the boy turned and looked down at the fallen Dwarf before asking, "Do you want to give up now and save some of your pride, or are we going to have to do this for a while longer?"

Himo was a little shocked already but even more so as Oskar got up again, this time without his knife, and hurriedly pulled off his armor, "Boy, I will not stop until you either knock me out or I kill you!"

Xander, for his part, at least to the half-elf, didn't look at all pulsed at the statement as he rolled his shoulders and cricked his neck one way and then the other, "Fine with me, short-stack – let's work."

"Stop it!" Dru stalked between the pair of males and glared at them alternately, "We can't afford to do-" she was cut off, though, when Oskar rushed past her towards Xander. "Hey! I'm not … done …" Dru tapered off, though, as she saw Xander turn with Oskar's charge, wrap one arm around the Dwarf's neck, latch another behind his head and jerk himself up enough to make the Dwarf's legs dangle off the ground a few inches. She then blinked as the Dwarf struggles intensified as Xander's neck, shoulders and arms bulged slightly, but all of this happening in a few heartbeats.

"Listen to me, Oskar, I do NOT want to kill you … but I will if you don't give me a choice." Xander's words were foreign to Paige's ears even as she watched Oskar's face turn from red to a purple color over several dozen heartbeats, his struggles weakening, "Submit!"

"N… no," came Oskar's weak reply even as she watched his face become more and more purple. He let out a very weak gasp as Xander jerked his body a little, making his dangling legs jerk around a little, and Paige was starting to get VERY worried to the point that she stood up to order Alexander stop when Oskar grunted out, "Y … y… yield."

Xander dropped the nearly-unconscious Dwarf to the ground with a thud and knelt down – his pulse was thundering and his lungs were heaving air into his body, but aside from a little weakness, Oskar would not have any long-lasting effects. By right, the move should have killed him – Oskar wasn't a small guy as far as weights went, he probably weighed more than Xander did in full armor, so he was lucky he wasn't going to have to pick up a dead Dwarf's slack; the weight of Oskar's body should have snapped his neck in that position, but it had not. Why? Xander wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to question good luck.

A pair of pale, shorts-clad legs stormed over towards him and he looked up in time to see Dru, her pale face burning red with anger and her green eyes blazing, as she hauled back and slapped him hard enough to not only see stars, but to also knock him off his feet, "What in the Infernal Planes do you think you were doing? You could have killed him!"

Paige walked over and restrained the fuming Dru even as Himo slowly got out of bed to check on the dazed Cleric, "Drusilia, calm down."

She suddenly felt Dru turn on her and found herself pinned in place by the young woman's piercing glare, "Calm down? He almost killed Oskar! Not that I care, really, but we're not done with this Dungeon."

"If I wanted to kill him I would have snapped his neck, Dru," Xander said from the ground, sounding more than a little dazed as Himo helped him to his feet. "Trust me, I'm good at killing things, and I know a lot of ways to do that." Paige watched him steady himself over the course of a minute before he shook his head slightly, "Add to that I had no intention of killing him and I ask you what the hell you were thinking, Dru?"

From his position on the ground, Oskar listened as the half-elf raged at the Cleric, "I was thinking that you're going to get us killed!"

The Cleric snorted, "Oh, that's good – me, get us killed? Who was it that nearly and actually has sprung the most traps? Who was it who almost got killed because she forgot that an axe blade is sharp and the flesh is easily cut?"

The half-elf sounded a little hurt at his scathing tone, "That's not the point, Xander, and you know it!"

"You're right, Dru, the point is that I gave him several chances to stop the fight, he ignored them all, and thus the fight ended the way it did. Let me give you a quick insight into where I come from – we fight demons and vampires on a NIGHTLY basis, so that makes you go for the kill instinctively." Oskar's brow shot up from his point on the floor even as he heard the Sorcerer hiss in amazement and the Paladin, who stood just in front of him, gasp, "Trust me, compared to some of the things I've had to kill and the ways I've killed them, that fight should have lasted all of ten seconds. Oh, and get this, little elf," he watched the Cleric get really close to the shorter female and heard him whisper to her, "in the little group I'm in, I'm what used to pass for the joker of the group, the comic relief." He pulled back and Oskar could see the flat look in his face, "Granted, I wasn't much then, still not much now, but overall that made people underestimate me – that's the last mistake many of them ever made."

Dru backed away from Xander, her eyes never leaving his face, "But … you're a Cleric …"

He nodded slightly, "Yes, I am – now. Back then, I wasn't and I fought to survive – trust me, it got pretty ugly sometimes, and more than a few times I lived when I shouldn't have." She could see his eyes cloud over slightly even as he looked off into some dark place over her shoulder, "If I had a piece of platinum for every time I cheated death, I'd make us all rich."

Himo spoke up then, "But the fact remains you could have killed Oskar – he has yet to move, as you can see."

Xander just snorted at him, "He's playing possum, and not doing a very good job of it, too." Himo watched as Xander went over and nudged Oskar's bulky side with his boot, "Get up, I saw you moving."

Oskar glared at the boy and sat up, albeit slowly, "You fought dishonorably."

The boy rolled his eyes at him, "You're only saying that because you lost, Oskar, and add to that I follow a very simple code of conduct in combat, a code that 'honor' never factors into except once."

"Oh, and when is that?" Paige's question brought him up short and he turned to look at her, her darks eyes somewhat darker and her tanned skin having lost some of the paleness that had been there, "Pelor's Clerics have always been honorable people, and here you are saying you are not, so I would like to know when honor DOES involve itself in your combat."

Xander nodded and walked over to sit where he had been to begin with, picking up the leathers that he was almost half-done repairing, "I always honor a threat that I make, Paige, though I'll generally wait until after the battle is over and we're safe to follow through with it." She steamed at him for several seconds before she turned away and stalked off, letting him continue his repairing Dru's leathers – it wasn't his fault they couldn't understand what he had been fighting over the past year, and by what rules he had been fighting them by.

(Next Afternoon)

Off to one side, Dru heard Xander hiss in pain as she ducked under yet another flying spider body – it had started out to be a decent enough day in that they had made it down to the third level of the place without too much interference, but none of them thought that it would be that easy. They'd gone about twenty feet down the corridor before they were attacked by the spiders, a small group of only four, but after that it had been wave after wave of them, and it had begun to wear them down – Paige was behind her, using her sword and shield to keep the spiders at a manageable level, but Dru was finding herself more and more reliant upon whatever she could get her hands on while him concentrated on his spells and Oskar was recovering from a poisonous bite he'd taken early on.

Xander tied the bandage he'd fashioned out of a few strips of linen around his knee, grunting I pain as he finished and picked up his mace again – one of the spiders had gotten lucky with a claw of some kind on the end of it's leg, getting him enough to draw blood, and it had only gotten worse, so he'd taken himself out of the fight so he could doctor it up. Of course when that happened, Oskar went down and that left him to tend to the poisoned Dwarf, who was almost ready to go again – the combat had been persistent, if not overwhelming at times, but it was slowly starting to peter out as the minutes went on.

"Good for you to join us," Paige said to him as she batted another flying spider towards him with her shield, one that he crushed with a baseball-like swing of his mace. "For a moment I thought you had decided to let Dru and myself have all of the fun."

He didn't spare her a glace as he clubbed another flying spider out of the air, "Paige, when this over, we're going to have to have a serious chat about your sense of humor." He looked around and saw no other spiders present, save the one that had decided to die a horribly acidic death on top of his shield, eating it all to hell and back, "So, Boss, where to now?"

"Once Oskar is up and about, we head to where the Witches and presumed Drow is," Paige said after a moment's thought, looking back at the Cleric. While she nor Xander had not use any spells that morning, Himo had used two already and this worried her, "Dru, are you okay?"

The half-elf nodded quickly, shivering slightly as she kicked away a twitching corpse of a spider, "Fine, but the sooner we get out of here, the better."

Ten minutes later, they were on the move down the staircase that led to the final level of the dungeon – Oskar, still a little out of it, was in the center, with Himo and Paige at the back while she and Xander were at the front; stairs weren't her favorite thing to go down, given how easy it was to trap them or to put alarms on them, but with each step she or Xander took, the other was scouring every square inch of space in front of the other. He had out his crossbow and was slowly sweeping back and forth while she had her own crossbow sweeping up and down, taking each step with care until all of them were at the bottom of the stairs, where a single locked door stood.

Himo took up Dru's spot as she began to examine the door, looking for any obvious traps, but after finding none she went about opening the lock with a silent skill that amazed Xander – after a few more minutes of looking, though, she nodded at him and opened the door.

THWANG! SCHLUMP! THUD!

The Witch whom was standing on the other side of the door never stood a chance, really, given the distance between her head and the bolt, which covered that distance in a fraction of a second. Xander dropped back and began to reload even as Himo and Dru both took point, entering the partially-lit area that smelled heavily of rotting meat, sex and smoke; patches of shadow and light were everywhere, as was the feel of the magic in the room, so heavy it felt as if it were skittering across their skins.

Reloaded, Xander joined Dru on one side of the hall-like area as Himo, Oskar and Paige all ducked into a shadowed alcove as a voice was heard, "Welcome, young ones … to your doom."

From her position on the other side of the hall, Paige heard Xander snort and mutter, "Oh, please, like that's SO original."

Two other figures stepped into the lighted portions of the hall, dressed in what appeared to be simple robes, and the group almost retched as one – both had been human, female and quite possibly very comely, but both also had horrific scarring and brands of arcane symbols upon their faces and exposed flesh; their eyes shone with an other-worldly light and, even as both Himo and Xander stood to fire at them, Paige could tell things were not going to go so easily.

THWANG! THWANG! SNAP! SPEWWW-CRASH! Both bolts, fired almost simultaneously, had different ends as Himo's slammed and shattered into one witch and Xander's was deflected off to one side, into the darkness by the other.

Both witches sneered at the males and, as one, made for Himo even as both shooters dropped their crossbows, allowing Paige to shout, "Dru, Xander, the Drow! We shall deal with these two."

Xander felt like it was a bad idea to leave the three others against two majorly pissed-off witches, but he wasn't given a choice in the matter as Dru grabbed him by the arm and drug him down the hall, into the darkness, after the Drow.

Dru's eyesight took in every available bit of light it could get ahold of even as she and Xander went through the darkened areas of the hall, the stone beneath their feet and around them echoing the sounds of their footsteps and Xander's armor enough that she came to a stop and whispered into his ear to take his armor off. He did so, surprisingly quietly, actually, and within minutes they were both on back on their way after the fleeing Drow, though this time much quieter.

Himo, Paige and Oskar, on the other hand, were having a bit of a difficult time as the two other witches began to summon more of the spiders that had plagued them since the beginning – Himo had fired off a Magic Missile spell, wiping out a whole clutch of spider eggs that were rapidly growing and hatching, while Oskar was busying himself by methodically smashing his axe into spider after spider. Paige, though, was making headway towards one witch by batting away spiders with her shield until she got close enough to score a hit on the witch's thigh, causing the witch to shriek and lose concentration over her spiders enough for them to turn on her. She watched in fascinated horror as the body of the witch slowly began to dissolve into a puddle of blood, bone and … goo before the attack was on again.

Oskar paid none of this a bit of mind as he happily killed spider after spider – he felt his heart pumping, his blood singing in his ears, and the sound of the bodies of the spiders being crushed by his axe was a GLORIOUS thing to him. Had he been paying more attention, though, he would have noticed a spider that had gotten past him and had flung itself towards the back of his partially-uncovered neck. Himo, however, did not miss this.

With a mighty swing, Himo copied Xander's own move of 'swinging for the fences', as the young Cleric called it, and splattered the spider out of mid-air, but not without cost – Oskar turned at precisely the wrong moment and a large portion of the spider's bleeding body lodged itself into his beard, sizzling both skin and hair as the Dwarf let out a mighty roar of pain, clawing at the chunk of spider. When he pulled away a chunk of both skin and hair, though, he let out a savage snarl and turned back to the approaching spiders, a battle-mad gleam in his eye as he launched himself at the remainder of the spiders, which had clumped themselves around the final remaining witch.

Her eyes widened as the Dwarf snarled at her babies and hurled himself at them – the Spider Queen had been generous to her and her sisters, giving them both her powerful children and the insatiable Drow, and she had sword to die before allowing harm to come to the children. She channeled her spell energy into one blast that hit the Dwarf full-on in the chest, flinging him back past the half-elf, but she also had a major problem – she couldn't defend against both the half-elf and the other woman whom had watched her sister die at the hands of her own children.

Himo's eyes blazed as she watched him move his hands, speak and then point to a spot behind the final witch, making Paige wince, "Arise, creature!" From behind the witch arose a burning creature of some kind, a bug, if her eyes were right, and it launched itself at the back of the witch with a vengeance.

From his position next to Dru, Xander could hear a heated scream echo down the hallway as Dru scanned the darkened area ahead of them while slowly fidgeting with her knives – whatever was going on back there, the witches sounded like they were having all they could handle from the rest of the party.

"There, behind that pillar," Dru whispered to him, pointing out the pillar on the far side of the dead-end hall.

Xander sighed, "Of course he is – so, how do we do this?"

She turned and looked at him with a bright smile as his eyes strained to lock in on the Drow in the darkness, "You draw him out, and I cut his throat?"

He gave her a look and sighed, knowing it was the best plan they were going to come up with, "Dru, when this is over, we're going to talk about your planning abilities." With that said, and her sticking her tongue out at him, he scampered off to the next pillar, knowing that there was less than fifty feet to the back wall, which Dru had told him was solid and flat rock, and made his way to the last pillar.

Dru watched the Drow, though he was on the edge of her vision range, and snarled as he waved at her and dropped back into the shadows. She started to move after Xander, but stopped when she heard a startled shout from the darkness ahead of her and then a solid-sounding thud of something hitting a person's head, hard. After several minutes, though, she whispered out, "Xand?"

"Not quite, dear." She repressed a snarl as the Drow walked out of the shadows, a smirk on his face, holding Xander's mace in his hands, "Though I must ask you if you were … attached … to this 'Xand', little half-breed – I fear he may not survive the blow I gave him."

Dru snarled at the Drow and ripped free her short sword, "You'd better hope not, Drow – he owes me, big, and I plan to collect." She began to circle the Drow, who only smirked at her as he copied her move while wielding Xander's mace, "So, how'd you get here? From what I understand, this isn't our plane."

He nodded at the little girl – he'd been around for a long time, and he had been to a great many places, but none of them were as strange or held as strange of humans as he'd come to know here, "A botched spell, of all things – my sister was attempting to teleport one of her creations into the waiting arms of a new mother, but instead I was brought here. Shame, really," he went on, ignoring the look of disgust on the half-elf's face, "because I so wanted to see the woman's face, but instead here I am, in a land of comely women who have the strangest desires and something called the 'Internet'."

Dru narrowed her eyes as the Drow prattled on, continuing to circle him even as her eyes focused on movement in the shadows – Xander was alive, on his feet and looking highly irritated as she saw a dark smear traveling down the left side of his cheek, "Well, Xander's told me a little about this world, but never about this 'Internet' – when this is over, I'll have to ask him about it."

"Drevel, by the way." She shot him a look and he went on, "My name, fair half-blood, is Drevel."

She gave him a frosty smile as she lashed in first with her dagger and then with her short sword, making the Drow skip backwards, "Drusillia, but why be so formal? Call me Death." She dove in this time, her dagger low and her short sword moving to parry the mace strike he was throwing at her. Their weapons clashed and it became a battle of strength … a battle she was losing.

Xander approached the gaunt Drow, who appeared to be dressed in little more than a pair of leggings, a loin cloth and a scrap of a shirt, his footfalls masked by the grunting of the two combatants as his hand tightened around the dagger – he knew what he was about to do was against Pelor's rules of combat, but quite frankly, he didn't care at that point. The Drow, Drevel, as he called himself, had gotten the drop on him moments before, and had cut him open if the blood oozing down the side of his head was any indication, but to take his mace and to try and use it against Dru? That was crossing the line.

He felt a tingle in his back even as the little half-blood before him caught him on the end of the nose with her dagger, making him flinch back – he screamed, though, at the feeling of a dagger entering into his back, reflexively dropping the mace he wielded. Drevel found a way to stagger off, turning to see the cleric there, blood covering half of his grim-looking face, but it was then that he felt the bite of a sword in his chest.

Dru smiled slightly as she pulled back from the fatal lunge she had made to the Drow, her short sword still sticking out of his chest as he fell to the stone floor, gasping for breath, "Sneaky, Xander, worthy of any assassin."

Xander snorted even as he felt … odd, "No, if it were worthy of an assassin, I would not be bleeding and he never would have gotten this far, Dru." He shook off the funny feeling even as they heard several pairs of feet walking up the corridor, "So, now what?"

(Later)

In retrospect, he shouldn't have been surprised when his healing spells were not working – Xander had broken the rules, and now he was paying the price as he limped up the final flight of stairs from the dungeon and into the blackness of a moonless Texas night.

Paige looked at him with a hint of sorrow in her eyes, "Are you sure you're okay, Xander?"

"I'm fine, Paige," he said again for the tenth time, his pack starting to weigh on him. They had hunted around the final hall and found a small hoard of what Dru and Himo both identified as spell components, but also two little things that Paige had told him were magical items – one was a ring, made of simple silver and Dru had immediately claimed it, calling it a ring of invisibility, but the other one, the one he currently had on, was what caught his attention. It was made of what appeared to be simple iron, but it had a ram's head on the front – something had drawn him to it even as Himo and Paige had busily shoveled a small stash of gold and spell components into every spare inch of backpack space; Paige had called it a ring of the Ram and had explained about it, three times a day, being able to hit a door or an object with a lot of force, but you could use the ring more than one charge at a time.

"I hope you will be," she said back to him, holding out her hand. He clasped it as a portal opened, blazing blue and showing a fair-sized city on the other side of it, "Be well, Xander."

"Be well, Paige, and work on that sense of humor," he said to her, smirking slightly as she smiled back at him before she walked through the portal.

Dru and Himo were next, with Himo simply grasping his hand and nodding before walking through the portal; Dru, on the other hand, stopped, with a smile, "So, are you going to stay out of trouble, Ex-Cleric?"

"I could ask you the same, Dru, but we both know the answer to that question." She gave him a fond smile and pulled him into a hug, "Be well, Drucillia." She nodded back at him and walked away into the portal, leaving him and Oskar.

"I still say you need to take things more seriously, especially battle, boy," the Dwarf started out gruffly, but a grin split his face, "but you're coming along nicely otherwise – you knew what would happen if you if you attacked the Drow like you did, and you did it anyway. Shows a good character, someone who is willing to what they have to in order to get the job done."

Xander nodded, "I'll pay the price, Oskar, though I still say you could stand to grow a few feet … or at least grow your beard back entirely." Oskar was now missing a chunk of his beard, from the top of his chin to the bottom of the chin, and there was scar tissue there, leaving him a rather sizable piece missing.

Oskar merely shrugged, idly stroking the twin braids that he had been forced to put his beard into, "Feh, it won't grow back, boy, but then again, this is easier to take care of – few places for crumbs to get into." They clasped hands and Oskar too went through the portal, which closed behind him.

Silence reigned in the desert for several minutes before he felt the presence there, so he turned and looked at Pelor, "So, how long am I sitting out?" The god of sun and healing merely looked at him quizzically, so Xander went on, "I can't use my spells, and I know I broke the rules – what do I have to do to make it up?"

Pelor gave him a long, steady look before speaking, his voice echoing slightly, "There are several tasks that you must perform, Alexander, to regain your abilities as a Cleric, many of which will be known to you at a later date, but I shall dictate to you now one of them." Xander gave him an expectant look even as the area faded away and then reformed into what appeared to be the Library, where there was a single body on the ground, a puddle of blood around her neck, "You must learn to control yourself, young mortal, and your more base tendencies." With that, Pelor went away and Xander could see the face of the person on the ground.

His heart stopped as the face registered, " … K … Kendra?"

AN: Okay, folks, that's the end of this over-due chapter – I finally got the group to agree on how and what happened with their characters, which is what most of the delay was, and here it is. What do you think, aside from Kendra being dead now? Reviews, please.


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